“The boots posed high biosecurity risk to New Zealand,” says MPI team manager Paul Ruttley.
“If they had only been used on the street in the city, it would have been okay. But, as they came from a farm, they could have been carrying diseases with potential to have a devastating impact on our farming industries.”
Ruttley says it is fairly common for MPI quarantine inspectors to intercept dirty boots, but very unusual to have a hitch-hiking snail. MPI has found cane toads from Australia inside boots in the past.
MPI’s announcement follows its statement earlier this week that the remains of an animal leg, found in a consignment of PKE on a Bay of Plenty farm, was a sheep’s leg, not an exotic goat or deer as originally thought.
