Mussel/Fish rescue on the Elwha

Rescue operations for fresh water mussels and fish is still a main priority at the Natural Resource Dept. at the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. This past week along with volunteers, hatchery employees and other REU students I helped to rescued chinook, coho, trout, sculpins and mussels from a section of a diversion channel being dewatered as part of the construction of the new water treatment plant for the City of Port Angeles in preparation for the removal of the dams on the Elwha River.

Mussel rescue

Last week I got to assist Larry Ward of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe with the second leg of rescuing mussels from the Elwha River. The mussels were rescued by Larry and several others from Olympic National Park due to the current construction going on in the Elwha for of the new water treatment plant for the City of Port Angeles. After the mussels were removed from the river they were brought back to the Tribal Hatchery where they were kept in raceways. Last week with help from my fellow REU'er Mel and USGS we dug out the some 6,000 plus mussels from pea gravel in the raceway, counted them, measured some of them and tagged 45 of the mussels with PIT tags. We then brought them to several different sidechannels of the Elwha (below the construction) and released them. It will be interesting to see where and how fast these tagged mussels will move. The PIT tags were super glued to the outside of the shell so hopfully they don't get rubbed off. It was amazing to see how 'happy' the mussels were minutes from being put back into the river. They were sticking out their foot and imbedding into the sediment.