Staff report
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
WILLIAMSTOWN , W.Va.— The little mussel with a funny yet colorful name, the purple cat’s paw, once lived in many of the big rivers in the Ohio River Basin.
Over 130 species of freshwater mussels lived in the watershed, burrowed in the bottom of rivers and streams, out of sight yet filtering the water and making it cleaner. Like many aquatic species, purple cat’s paw numbers and distribution across the landscape declined throughout the last 120 years, during the period of intense industrialization, pollution, and dam building in the region.
It was listed as “endangered” back in 1990, when only two small populations were known to survive in Kentucky and Tennessee. Since they are not capable of moving back on their own, any chance at recovery rests with people.
“Thankfully, the Clean Water Act worked, and many species of fish and mussels can now thrive again in our rivers,” said Michael Schramm, visitor services manager for the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge at its headquarters in Williamstown.
In 1994, a population of purple cat’s paw was discovered in Ohio’s Killbuck Creek, within the Muskingum River watershed. From that period forward, a coordinated effort began to help restore and recover the rare mussel from the brink of extinction, he said. It took many years for additional surveys to find them, and in the meantime, intensive research was underway on how to hold and propagate mussels in captivity.
Those efforts were successful in 2012, when females were located and held in Killbuck Creek for hatcheries to work with in the spring of 2013, Schramm said. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, Center for Mollusk Conservation, and White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery in West Virginia both were able to raise baby mussels for eventual release to the wild.
As of 2017, there are over 2,500 young purple cat’s paws ready to return to the rivers it once called home, Schramm said. Restoring and eventually reconnecting populations is the best method to improve their future survival chances. This work is underway in four states now — Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia — with more on the horizon, he said.
The species occurred in the mainstem Ohio River, from Marietta to Cincinnati, and likely at other places in between, Schramm said.
On Wednesday, a new pilot population will be established back in the Ohio River near Marietta at Buckley Island, he said. Biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and West Virginia Division of Natural Resources will tag the mussels for future monitoring and place them in the river by hand while SCUBA diving.
The refuge on Waverly Road will provide long term protection for the habitat in which it lives, side by side with over 20 species of other mussels –five of which are also endangered but are now on the road to recovery, Schramm said.
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