25 years ago I was with a group of archaeologists near my papakainga (village) Maramarahi near Thames, NZ where they were explaining to me what a shell midden was. They said this is what your people were eating hundreds of years ago. I noticed that there were only a handful of Titiko in the midden even though there were tonnes readily available nearby. In comparison, there were hundreds of pipi and cockle shells. Over the next 25 years I asked every archaeologists and read heaps of archaeological reports/assessments as to why there were few Titiko in the midden. Their views is that it was a seasonal harvest, pollution had affected their habitats, not tasty, at least some acknowledged the difficulty to recover the meat.
