Nearly-extinct rare mussel species back to life in Virginia river

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News wesbites
29 Jan 10:29

Over 2,000 mussels have been reintroduced into the Virginia river that had long been their home.

James spinymussels cultured at the Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery (USFWS)

A peculiar organism known as the James spinymussel once inhabited the James River, which extends more than 300 miles from the Appalachian Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.

However, pollution and wastewater nearly wiped out the species, forcing wildlife specialists to raise spinymussels for more than a decade at a hatchery south of Richmond. They successfully reintroduced over 2,000 mussels into the Virginia river that had long been their home few months ago.

'The livers of the rivers'

James spinymussels are one of around 80 freshwater mussel species in Virginia, and experts believe they're an important component of keeping the region's streams and rivers healthy.

Brian Watson, an aquatics resources biologist at the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, stated that one mussel can filter up to 15 gallons of water each day and functions similarly to a water filter in a refrigerator, preventing pollutants like nitrogen from entering streams.

It’s a crucial job, Watson added, that has earned spinymussels the nickname “the livers of the rivers.”

Spinymussels received their name because some of them have a pointed spike — sometimes two or three — protruding out of their shell that is supposed to assist them in keeping "their position in the stream bottom," as per Watson.

Watson believes that the presence of mussels in a freshwater river indicates that the water is healthy for humans to drink, swim in, and fish in.

Mussels also benefit the ecosystem in other ways: their beds provide a rich home for invertebrates, and the mussels provide food for muskrats and otters.

In the late 1980s, Virginia designated spinymussels as an endangered species. Conservation efforts for them began the following decade, as scientists documented where their populations had dropped the most. They discovered that mussels were abundant in the James River in the 1950s but had diminished by the mid- to late-1960s, albeit some were identified in tributaries.

The mussels have a difficult time reproducing. Because they are parasitic, they must obtain nutrients from the blood of a fish in order to develop into even a juvenile mussel. But catching a fish is difficult, especially for a mussel with no feet or fins.

Experts plucked several adult female spinymussels from the water and recreated their life cycles at a hatchery to help boost their population in the James River.

It took around two years for the spinymussels to mature enough as young adults to be released into the river.

Joe Wood, a senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, stated freshwater mussels like the spinymussels are important to the ecosystem of the bay and have been in “an impaired state for too long.”