Louise Maudlin from the La Crosse Fishery Resources Office helps "skin" cages at Genoa NFH. - USFWS photo

Members of the Friends of the Upper Mississippi Fisheries Services help Dave Heath, of the Wisconsin DNR, finish a cage. - USFWS photo

The popping of the last rivet signaled the end of another successful cage building party at Genoa National Fish Hatchery.  This annual event held on Feb. 22 and 23 reminds us that the start to the mussel field season is just around the corner.  

The staff at Genoa National Fish Hatchery would like to thank the many volunteers that put in 144 hours of their time to help complete the huge task of constructing 94 mussel culture cages in two days.  This is the largest number of cages ever assembled at Genoa NFH in one sitting. 

Volunteers from the Friends of Upper Mississippi Fisheries Services, Friends of Pool 9, La Crosse Fisheries Resource Office, Hawkeye Community College, the Hartman Reserve Nature Center, the Army Corp of Engineers and Department of Natural Resources from Wisconsin and Iowa all pitched in to complete the construction of the mussel propagation cages. 

Freshwater mussels are the largest group of organisms on the endangered species list.  Restoration efforts are required to combat the threats of habitat degradation and exotic zebra mussels that are continually impacting our native mussel populations.  The majority of these cages will be used for propagation of the endangered Higgins eye pearlymussel and the endangered winged mapleleaf. 

Since 2001, Genoa NFH and the Mussel Coordination Team, a multi-agency task force, have used culture cages to produce an estimated 25,000 sub-adult Higgins eye pearlymussels.  In 2005, the group produced its first captive winged mapleleaf offspring.  The remaining cages will be used for a smaller propagation effort with the Hartman Reserve Nature Center to restore native mussels in the Cedar River in Iowa.