Foundation recruits mussels for habitat work
Rogers State students will monitor mollusks released along Verdigris River
CLAREMORE — Boot-sucking mud and 100-degree heat were made-to-order for about 1,000 new residents of the Claremore this summer. Muddy and wet, that’s their style.
There’s nothing flashy or splashy about being a freshwater mussel. But a local conservation non-profit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, and biologists at Rogers State University believe the arrival of about 1,000 common sub-adult mussels was no less than a glorious addition to the mouth of Boggy Creek at the Verdigris River.
Ecologists worldwide warn that mussels are indicator species, canary-in-the-coal-mine critters to watch–invisible to most, as they may be. So, someday, this mussel release could mean something notable.
According to biologist Amy Maynard of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery in Neosho, Mo., the common plain pocketbook, giant floater, and bleufer mussels have cousins in the area who need a little help, and they all have important jobs to continue.
“Our goal is to do both species restoration and river restoration overall,” she said. “Freshwater mussels are endangered and threatened. Oklahoma has about 60 species of freshwater mussel but they are in need of help.”
Raised in outdoor ponds at the hatchery and transported in coolers to maintain that warm, wet environment, the sub-adult mussels ranging in size from a Zippo lighter to a pack of cigarettes were well-acclimated, Maynard said.
A steep, slick, muddy bank led the release party to a pond-like pool at the mouth of Boggy Creek, apparently carved by years of what must be, at times, a water-fall-like flow through a round school-bus-sized concrete opening under a county road bridge immediately upstream.
Waist-deep in the chocolate milk water, Maynard leaned over, holding a mussel in her hand, and pushed it into the mud at her feet.
“Planted, just like a seed,” she said.
All the mussels will grow, but some will never be more than a few inches long, even if they live for decades. The giant floaters can grow to the size of a large baked potato.
The Oklahoma Biodiversity Information System lists 12 mussels as species of concern, which is a ranking that includes everything from six federally protected endangered or threatened species to others ranked as imperiled, vulnerable, or unknown.
Federally endangered western fanshell, Neosho mucket, and rabbitsfoot mussels live in Rogers and Nowata county tributaries of the Verdigris, as well as state-listed “imperiled” monkeyface mussles and “vulnerable” threeridge mussels, according to Biodiversity System records online.
Maynard said mussels make up for what they might lack in flashy appearance or excitement with important ecological work.
“Mussels filter the water; they eat algae and bacteria, so they’re burning those things out of the water. They participate in nutrient cycling in the river and they can also be food for things like mammals, and they actually make food for the aquatic insects that the fish then eat, so they’re just an important link in that ecosystem,” she said.
Anglers recognize the Neosho hatchery for its connection with trout for the famed Lake Taneycomo fishery at Branson. It recently began a restoration program for freshwater mussels in the tri-state mining district. It is interested in participating in restoration efforts for other listed aquatic species in the Ozark region. She said the Boggy Creek release marked the hatchery’s first delivery of freshwater mussels to Oklahoma.
Rogers State University Biology Department Assistant Professor Mark Peaden said students will monitor the mussels post-release for at least two years, along with other ecological studies of the area. A colored Super Glue dot marks each transplanted mussel’s shell.
According to EJ Oppenheimer, director of field operations for the Valley Foundation, Boggy Creek runs through the ranch at the Valley Park Agroecology Center, which is essentially the international non-profit’s home base. It is the ranch where he grew up, but he said it only became a model for permaculture and ecological innovations after development threatened its future.
Home projects are a small part of the non-profit’s history of permaculture instruction and restorative agriculture work across the United States, eastern Africa, and Central and South America.
They work closely with nearby Rogers State students on several wildlife and habitat conservation projects involving everything from local snakes and bats to migratory birds. He said the mussels are part of the foundation’s effort to conserve and improve the ranch’s and surrounding area’s ecology.
“We were interested in the mussels primarily because the Verdigris is home to the rabbitsfoot, which is an endangered mussel, and we want to show how our conservation efforts can impact and help those other species, things that are normally overlooked, mussels being a huge one,” he said.
