To date, there have been 6,818 native mussels placed in the Cedar River at three locations. The other two, Pletta said, are the Cannon River running through Northfield and the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. The Cedar is one of three rivers in Minnesota where this kind of work is being done in order to rebuild populations. “There was just no opportunity for mussels to restore themselves,” she said. “Generally where you see fish congregating you see populations of mussels,” Pletta said.īefore, repopulating the mussel population was difficult because of all the dams throughout the Cedar River into Iowa.
She said that mussel larvae will attach to the fish in their gills and fins and be transported up and down the system. Pollution also took its toll on the body of water, however, in recent years the stream has seen a revitalization and Pletta said that the river is now at a point where not only is the water clean enough, but the fish population is back to where it needs to be to help foster the growth of mussels.
While the city was named “Pearl City” for the number of pearls harvested, it also nearly wiped out the entire population. Mussels are integral to the health of rivers, streams and lakes, but the Cedar River’s population was overfarmed in the search for pearls from about 1890 through the early 1900s. I love coming to Austin because you are our cheerleaders.”
“I was completely blown away when I walked in,” she said. Madeline Pletta, a state mussels propagation biologist with the project, which is funded by the state’s Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, was in Austin Wednesday to see the exhibit for the first time.
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