How to Preserve Fresh Water Mussels .
No one will ordinarily envision a river coughing up filth. The idea makes for a good analogy when considering what has happened to the health of some rivers. The home of the greatest population of freshwater mussels is now being exhausted by industrialization. The glossy solid mussel shell was first industrialized, by a German Shoe maker named John Fredrick Beopple. The pearl button was a highly useful material making it a profitable business venture. In nineteen ten the Bureau of Fisheries knew the commodity was being overly exploited and began researching new methods for preserving them. Fortunately, by the nineteen forties the arrival of plastic, outwitted the Freshwater Shell Industry. Thus the mussel was able to flourish at will. The communities indigenous to these southern rives likely wonder how, the future generation will deal with issues of the river. .
Today, cultured pearls make up a three billion dollar industry. Signs show that this will not be a constant money making trade. Everyone should be familiarized with how industrialization's pollutants rain into the river. The industries pollution, exploitation, dams and including the advancing zebra mussel's (qtd.in Smithsonian February 1994) overpopulating influence exhaust it. In fact modern industry has altered the natural habitat of fresh water mussel "According to the United States geological survey biologist Steve Ahlstedt, there are 100-year-old mussels, some the size of small hubcaps, stuck between dams with no way to reproduce because their host fish can't get to them anymore-(qtd in 68). When comparing the former American Shell Industry with the modern version it seems that the old better met the needs of the freshwater mussel. After all, they come from a world with a highly structured yet delicately balanced system. Unlike synthetic materials that are disposable, mussels coax us as a natural wonder that should always be around.
