Twenty walleye were placed in a mussel culture cage that was placed in Lake Pepin in June. Fish were released from the cage in July when a sample of the walleye kept at Genoa NFH had finished transforming juveniles. The cages were checked Sept. 30 to reveal 96 black sandshell juveniles. These mussels were returned to their cage and placed back in Lake Pepin for another growing season. To our knowledge, this is the first known successful propagation and culture of black sandshell. Upon continued survival, these juveniles will be used to begin the recovery of declining populations of black sandshell in the upper Mississippi River drainage.

On the heels of our black sandshell success and a very successful season of producing Higgins-eye pearly mussels in cages, Genoa NFH and the MN DNR teamed up on Oct. 20 to attempt the culture washboard mussels, a Minnesota state listed species, in a cage in Lake Pepin. Divers from MN DNR collected washboard from pool 3 of the Mississippi River, while the mussel biologist from Genoa NFH determined if the washboards were gravid.

After four gravid individuals were collected, they were transported to the MN DNR office in Lake City, Minn., where the glochidia were tested for viability. Two of the four individuals contained viable glochidia. Glochidia from these individuals were pipetted onto the gill of 7 channel catfish. These catfish will be held over winter in Lake Pepin, in a cage behind the MN DNR office. The reason for holding the fish over winter is to mimic the natural temperature regime that the washboard glochidia would experience in nature. The goal of this project is to determine if washboards can be cultured in similar fashion and with similar success as the Higgins-eye pearly mussel.