MUSSEL WATCH, 2: Helping imperiled organisms ... 
on Passport to Texas.
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife 

Most of us only know mussels -- bivalve mollusks -- from the 
grocery store seafood counter. What you may not know is 
Texas hosts more than fifty species of native 
freshwater mussels. 

They can vary in shapes and sizes. Some of them are very 
small to, say, an inch or two. And some of them can be very 
large -- nine or ten inches. And they can live 
anywhere from ten years to a hundred years, depending on the 
species. :14

Marsha May oversees the Texas Mussel Watch Program, a 
citizen science project that enlists people to monitor 
freshwater mussels, one of the most imperiled 
groups of organisms in the US.

They are very sensitive to changes in their environment, 
and many species of freshwater mussels can't handle that 
hange. We're finding shells in those situations where the animals have died off. :14

Mussel Watch participants play a vital role in helping 
researchers understand these organisms. If you want to 
ecome a citizen scientist, you must attend a workshop.

We have a few workshops scheduled for the spring. One will be 
in Tyler, we'll have another one in San Antonio, and we'll have 
another one in Bastrop. And if folks are interested, they can go 
to our website to find out when these workshops occur. :13

Find links to Mussel Watch Workshops at passporttotexas.org.

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