MUSSEL WATCH: Helping imperiled organisms ... on Passport to Texas.
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife 

It may interest you to learn that ... 

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled group of organism 
in North America. :04

Marsha May oversees the Texas Mussel Watch Program for Texas 
Parks and Wildlife.

We have fifty-two, fifty-three species of freshwater mussels 
in Texas, and they live in our freshwater streams and lakes 
and ponds, and even in stock ponds and tanks. And they have 
been in Texas for thousands and thousands of years. And they're 
just amazing creatures. They clean the systems. They're nature's 
bio-filters, and a very important part of the ecosystem. :22

Texas Mussels Watch is an ongoing citizen science project that 
needs your help.

We want to get citizens involved in monitoring their populations 
throughout the state, because there's been very little monitoring 
being done. And, they are a very important organism. To get involved 
a citizen would have to have to go through training, because you have 
to have a permit in order to even handle a shell of a freshwater
mussel. So, we supply workshops where we train individuals on how to 
monitor them and how to be very careful with them. And, we really 
just want to know where they are, and how many there are out there.

Find links to Mussel Watch Workshops at passporttotexas.org.

That's our show ... For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.