Let's Get Musscular!
Get Musscular
Citizen Science
There are plenty of free apps and websites you can use to get involved with citizen science, and even more freshwater mussel based projects you can join on these programs to directly help the scientists studying our freshwater friends.
Freshwater mussel citizen science projects:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/freshwater-mussels-of-the-western-u-s
https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/2921
https://scistarter.org/freshwater-mussel-volunteer-survey
Inspirational citizen science freshwater mussel articles:
https://www.utne.com/environment/citizen-mussels-zm0z1910zhoe/
Personal Sustainability Changes
Your everyday actions affect the world around you at all times, some in good ways, some not so much. Some of your actions you may not think twice about, but they are actually causing great damage to the environment around you. Making simple personal sustainability changes to your everyday lifestyle can make a world of a difference, even if the changes seem as small as a glochidia!
* Lower waste consumption
Less waste consumed, less waste in our waterways!
* Lower energy consumption
Less energy consumed, less of a need for new power sources such as hydroelectric dams!
* Pick up after Fido!
Dog poop left on lawns and sidewalks get washed into local bodies of water, filling them with harmful nutrients that pollutes them, hurting our mussels!
* Put up signs for dog poop pick up around your neighborhood, maybe even provide some poop bags and/or a trash bin!
* Contact your local government for more ways to implement better dog waste cleanup
* Yard Care
Your yard can be home to many factors of storm water pollution and you don't even know it! This sneaky pest can easily be changed however with several easy and fun alterations.
* Build a rain garden
A garden of native plants planted in a depression of land to capture and filter out storm water runoff.
* Set up a rain barrel
A barrel placed at the bottom of your gutters to catch roof runoff
* Limit yard chemical use
Pesticides, fertilizers, pet waste, and more pollutants litter yards and soil, getting trapped in storm water, trailing into bodies of water.
* Redirect house gutters away from impervious surfaces
Surfaces such as driveways, sidewalks, and other solid materials cannot, absorb water. Therefore, redirecting storm water to pervious surfaces such as lawns, soil, mulch, etc. would decrease the amounts of runoff.
* Combat erosion by planting trees
When soil erodes, it becomes runoff, polluting waterways. Tree roots help to hold soil in place, preventing this erosion no matter the weather.
* Boating practices
A big killer of freshwater mussels is the stubborn zebra mussel, a fellow mollusk that attaches to solid surfaces, including freshwater mussel shells, reproducing rapidly and consuming freshwater mussel natural diets. The presence of the invasive mussels on the native mussel shells suffocates them, and takes over their access to their needs. These hitchhikers are spread fastest through contaminated boating gear being brought to different bodies of water.
* Drain your boat and any buckets of water into the same water previously in before moving them to other areas
* Remove any and all aquatic plants in or on your boat, trailer, or gear.
* Dry your boat, trailer, and gear out in the sun for at least 5 days before using again.
Vote For Gold Pod 3
Vote for our group in the Minnesota Zoo's Science in Action Competition, so further work can be done with mussels with Minnesotan youth!
Learn The Stories of Your Waterways
Gary Wagenbach, a professor from Carleton College in Northfield, MN stated that one of the best ways to get involved with freshwater mussels is to just go out and get familiar with your local waterways. Walk your dog to that stream by your house, take a drive to the Mississippi River and observe the water, look for what mussel species reside there! Every body of water is different, and each has their own story. Be the one to musscle up and find what that story is, so you can help make its future even more muscular than before!
If you wish to evaluate a body of water on your property, use the Stream Visual Assessment Protocols (SVAP or SVAP 2), developed by the NRCS to be able to determine the quality of your watershed and know how to move forward with conservation work.
Education
Education is the baseline for everything. Congratulations, you reading through our website is already filling this task! Working to learn more about the species that surround you connects you to them more than ever before. Letting you see through their perspective, and listening to their stories gives you the opportunity to find how to make a difference! Filter feeding your brain with knowledge can also transfer over to teaching others, broadening our colony of musselists to save these magnificent mollusks!
Good sources to use for further freshwater mussel education, involvement, and support:
https://www.fws.gov/midwest/endangered/clams/mussels.html
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mussels/index.html
https://hovelab.cfans.umn.edu/minnesota-native-mussel-project
https://mnzoo.org/conservation/minnesota/freshwater-mussels/
https://www.enviroscienceinc.com/services/endangered-mussel-surveys/
Spread The Word
Share interesting facts or sources online, make your own campaign, get YOUR word out there on why these organisms need our help. Social media is the most important, impactful, and efficient platform we have today, and makes spreading knowledge to others around you just that much easier. A simple post to your Instagram story, the link to a website you liked (like ours!), or even your own musselist account, YOU can make a difference. Let's recruit more musselists, and make this world a more musscular place!
