Mussel Monitoring Workshop

 

This workshop is a follow-up to our September 2017 event when we relocated 400 Plain Pocketbook mussels into the Sugar River. Our goal is to survey how many of those original 400 mussels are still there, and how they’ve progressed.

 

This is a wonderful activity for all ages and abilities. A light lunch and beverages will be provided! Water is generally 2-3 feet deep in the sections we are targeting, so high boots/waders or quick-drying shorts are encouraged. Some additional pairs of waders will be available for people to use.

 

Mussels have a storied history in the Sugar River, even to the point of receiving national attention by the New York Times back in the early 1900s. During this time, mussels were used for button making and populations were decimated. In September of 2017, Upper Sugar released 400 Plain Pocketbook mussels into the Sugar River near Paoli. These mussels were raised by the Wisconsin DNR at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery in La Crosse, WI. Volunteers helped mark mussels with stickers and placed them in strategic locations along the Sugar River. In recent years, captive propagation and augmentation methods like this have increasingly been used as a species recovery tool to re-establish sustainable mussel populations. Today, the Upper Sugar River does not have a strong mussel population despite a suitable habitat. Through this citizen science monitoring program, we hope to find out why populations are low and help to re-establish the Plain Pocketbook mussel.