Best of 2012: 9) Gone fishin'

Atlantic salmon in circular
pool at White River National
Fish Hatchery.
Credit: Ann Froschauer/USFWS

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

Ever had an aquarium? You probably had no more than a handful of fish to care for. Imagine if you were raising millions and millions of fish, including a variety of species with different needs. Let's throw some freshwater mussels in there, too.

You're starting to look like a national fish hatchery, where biologists blend layers upon layers of science and technique to successfully raise and release fish and mussels that will support our waters and fishing pastime and industry.

Best of 2012: 1) Protecting and restoring our waters

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

Before and after aerial shots of the Great Works Dam site on Maine's Penobscot River.

Our rivers and streams connect us to just about everything we do, from drinking and energy to fishing and other recreation. Some of the water barriers that we’ve put in place to harness this precious resource, including road-stream pipes (culverts), dams and dikes, have seriously impacted wildlife and water quality. Of the estimated six million barriers across the U.S., many are now also obsolete and hazards to human health and safety.

Gifts from nature: Healthy waters

She helps get it from forest to your faucet, but Mother Nature needs your help to continue providing clean water for people and wildlife. 

A project at Sedgeunkedunk Stream in Maine removed a dam and restored natural water functions. Credit: Meagan Racey/USFWS

 
During this season of holiday giving, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would like to take time and reflect on the gifts we receive throughout the year from Mother Nature. Gifts of Nature are treasures to behold and wonders to be thankful for. 

Improving a WV river's health by bringing back endangered mussels

Did you think we were through with freshwater mussels? Never! Hear from Barb Douglas, an endangered species biologist with our West Virginia Field Office, on an effort to save endangered mussels from a bridge project and bring them to several sites in other states, including West Virginia. A Pennsylvania biologist shared her perspective last month.

It was a beautiful autumn morning, a perfect day to be out on the Elk River, my favorite river in the state, and doing something I love: restoring populations of endangered mussels.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The WCHS-TV crew tagged along the day these endangered mussels were released. Check out the Healthy Mussels Means Health Rivers eyewitness webcast.

The Elk River has the highest diversity of fish and mussels of any watershed in West Virginia. It’s home to 100 types of fish and 30 types of freshwater mussels, including four endangered mussel species. Populations of many of these species have declined because of poor water quality in the river.

One of those endangered mussels, the northern riffleshell, hadn’t been seen here for almost 20 years. Fortunately, the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania still has a large northern riffleshell population, and our partners there were willing to allow us to transfer some of their mussels out of the path of a new highway bridge and into the Elk River, near an area where they historically occurred.

Hydrilla closes in on the Great Lakes

The first collection of Hydrilla verticillata from
Tonawanda Creek. Credit: USFWS

You don’t necessarily need to be looking for an aquatic invasive species to find it. Sometimes it appears when you least expect it.

That’s exactly what happened in early September, when Lower Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office staff discovered Hydrilla verticillata, a highly invasive aquatic plant, in the New York State Canal System in Tonawanda, N.Y. The location was literally at the base of a boat ramp, a highly visible area that should lend itself to early discovery.

Nonetheless, it apparently went unnoticed for some time, hiding within the abundant native plants, particularly Canadian/common waterweed, a native aquatic plant similar in appearance. The distinction between the two is important, as hydrilla crowds out waterweeds and other essential plants. It slows water flow and can clog lakes and rivers enough to even eliminate swimming or boating.

Pa. mussels help restore streams in Ill., Ohio and WV

We love freshwater mussels so much that we extended our month-long series to tell you about work to restore and protect freshwater mussels and their homes in Pennsylvania. Today you're hearing from Lora Zimmerman, the assistant supervisor of Contaminants and Conservation Planning Assistance in our Pennsylvania office. This series highlights the importance of freshwater mussels to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

Pennsylvania is known for a lot of things—spectacular trout fishing, abundant energy resources, intensely rivaled hockey teams—but one of the lesser known treasures of Pennsylvania is its native freshwater mussels.  

Species almost lost elsewhere are known from the Allegheny River and French Creek in western Pennsylvania, and they are the envy of several neighboring states where the mussels have either been lost or populations are too small to survive without assistance. For example, although it remains in only five percent of its historical range, the northern riffleshell continues to have thriving populations in Pennsylvania. Likewise, the clubshell mussel also has stronghold populations in the Commonwealth.

Clubshell mussel. Credit: USFWS

Clubs, riffles and rays of New York

This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

 The Allegheny River basin holds globally significant populations of four species of mussels federally listed as endangered.  They are northern riffleshell (Epioblasma torulosa rangiana), clubshell (Pleurobema clava), rayed bean (Villosa fabalis) and snuffbox (Epioblasma triquetra).  

Surveys in the upper Allegheny River basin in New York and Pennsylvania have found populations of these species in the past, but portions of the mainstem Allegheny River and its tributaries remain un-surveyed or have incomplete surveys -- an obstacle to truly achieving recovery.

Diver looking for riffleshell and clubshell mussels. Credit: Jeremy Tiemann Il/Natural History Survey

Moving mussels

Cheryl Daigle from the Penobscot River Restoration Trust.

Today you're hearing from Cheryl Daigle, the community liaison and outreach coordinator for the Penobscot River Restoration Trust. This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

Working on a river restoration project that is focused on restoring 11 species of sea-run fish -- including the enigmatic shortnose sturgeon and leaping wonder of salmon -- offers many fascinating moments of discovery about rivers, community, and restoration of place.

Yet, I never imagined freshwater mussels would invite the depths of thought I had while helping to relocate exposed mussels to deeper habitat during the removal of the Great Works Dam and subsequent lowering of the impoundment to a natural river flow.

Giving mussels a boost in Tenn.'s Powell River

Today you're hearing from Jess Jones, a restoration biologist with the Service's Virginia Field Office, on releasing the largest group of three endangered mussels in the Powell River. This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

Biologist Jess Jones distributes mussels. Credit: Gary Peeples/USFWS

Every once in a while everything just works out. 

Today was such a day -- cool and sunny, an early fall afternoon on the Powell River in northeastern Tennessee, where biologists and students worked together to release endangered mussels. Heavy rains occurred the week before, but the water level dropped just in time to stock them in the river, 5,500 oyster mussels (Epioblasma capsaeformis), 1,000 Cumberlandian combshells (Epioblasma brevidens), and 27 snuffbox (Epioblasma triquetra). The young mussels were 1-2 years old and about 20-30 mm long.

Freshwater mussel conservation in western New York

This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

Nestled between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie in western New York, the Service's Lower Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office is located in an incredibly unique area. Part of the reason this area is so interesting is the high number of streams with freshwater mussels.

A native freshwater mussel found in the stream during a road-crossing survey. Credit: USFWS

Freshwater mussel populations are in decline all over the country. Pollution and habitat loss are two of the leading causes of the population decline. As the human population grows and cities spread out, more roads are built, many of which cross streams. When those road crossings are installed correctly, they cause no problems.

However, due to budget constraints and lack of training for the installers, many crossings are under-sized or incorrectly installed. This causes a major problem for fish and other critters that live in the stream. The road crossing becomes a barrier to fish migration, as well as the migration of other species, including freshwater mussels.

Life in the lab: The less glamorous side of marine biology

Today you're hearing from Melissa May, a doctoral student in marine biology at the University of Maine, about her work studying how mussels respond to changes in salinity. For this post, we're switching from freshwater to saltwater mussels in our series.

Sure, being a marine biologist is awesome, but it’s not all whales and ocean excursions.

Most of us spend a fair amount of time in the laboratory, bent over microscopes or analyzing data. And, more often than not, our research subjects resemble slimy blobs instead of adorable animals. But, we lab rats get a different perspective of the world. We see inside the cells, we manipulate the unseen, and we play with expensive equipment.

I study mussels – the same ones you’ve sautéed in wine. On the outside, there isn’t much to them, but we all know it’s what’s on the inside that counts. And take it from me, they’re fascinating!

Not just rocks: The mussels of our rivers and streams

Today you’re hearing from Meagan Racey, who handles public affairs and media relations for Ecological Services, on her recent encounter with freshwater mussels. This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.

The sky beamed blue above, and the sun shined down on me below as I sliced the clear water with my paddle—shwoosh down the right side of the kayak, and shwoosh down the left side. From the shoreline, a great blue heron watched me wearily, and up ahead a bald eagle peered from the treetop. Minnows darted under the water and water bugs glided across the top.

It’s hard to beat a day on the water. My trip down a portion of New England’s longest river, the Connecticut River, started at Greenfield, Mass., and amid all the beautiful details I mentioned above, one unmentioned characteristic struck me the most – the littering of freshwater mussels poking up from the bottom of the clear river.