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PHOTO CREDIT KURT HOLTZ
The Fresh water mussel is nature’s river cleaner. But every autumn, for three years running, there’s been a mass die off of one of the most important species. Biologists say, if this continues, what’s at stake is nothing less than our global river ecosystems.
The Clinch River system in southern Appalachia is world class, rich with wildlife from pretty much the entire food chain, top to bottom. But it’s the bottom that has scientists extremely concerned. A keystone species of freshwater mussel that filters a large portion of these waters is dying by the thousands and biologists are desperate to find out why.
Tony Goldberg is an infectious disease epidemiologist and a veterinarian from the university of Wisconsin, Madison Veterinary School. “We’re at ‘ground zero.’ This, the Clinch River is the best studied example of this. But throughout the world there are muscle populations that are experiencing what we’re calling mass mortality events where you’ll walk out onto the river and you’ll see unusually large numbers of fresh dead mussels.”
Courtesy of wvtf.org
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