The Protection of Fresh-Water Mussels

Part 1

Transcriber's note:

Italics is represented with underscore _, bold with the equal sign = and small caps with ALL CAPS. Everything (including inconsistent hyphenation and spelling) has been retained as printed, unless stated below:

p. 7: "in the Misippi River" Misippi changed to Mississippi.

Some words were broken up due to line endings. As they only occur once in the book it's not absolutely clear if they should be hyphenated or not. This concerns the words: short-sightedness, sand-shell, head-waters.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE BUREAU OF FISHERIES

HUGH M. SMITH, Commissioner

THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS

=By R. E.COKER, Ph. D.=

Director U. S. Biological Station Fairport, Iowa

Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 793

WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1914

THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS

=By R. E. COKER, Ph. D.=

Director U. S. Biological Station, Fairport, Iowa

Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 793

CONTENTS.

Page Present conditions 3 The mussel industry 3 Depletion of the resources 4 The interests of the community 5 Artificial propagation of mussels by the Government 7 Establishment of propagation 7 Results dependent upon protection 8 Protection 9 Essential considerations for effective legislation 9 Examination of protective measures 10 Two measures for immediate application 10 Measures not suited to existing conditions 10 Size limit--necessity and application 12 Exhaustive nature of the fishery 12 Waste illustrated 13 Size limit in relation to economy 15 Reasons for the proposed 2-inch limit 16 Details essential to effective legislation 17 Closed regions--necessity and application 18 Injury to spawning mussels and to young 18 Considerations determining size of closed regions 19 Practicable division of river systems illustrated 20 Procedure for establishing closed regions 21 Enforcement of the law 22 Summary of recommended legislation 23

THE PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS.

By R. E. COKER, Ph. D.,

Director United States Biological Station, Fairport, Iowa.

PRESENT CONDITIONS.

THE MUSSEL INDUSTRY.

The history of the fresh-water mussel industry gives illustration of the promptness with which an American industry may be developed once the pathway is found. Undertaken in a small way scarcely more than a score of years ago, the manufacture of pearl buttons began almost immediately to assume the proportions of an important national industry. As early as 1898, when the enterprise was only 6 years old, there were about 50 factories in more than a dozen towns along the Mississippi. With improved machinery and methods further expansion occurred, until within a few years the output approximated 30 million gross of buttons, with a value of many millions of dollars. The growth of the industry has continued to the present time, but exact figures will not be available until the Bureau has completed a statistical survey now in progress.

Not less important has been a resultant economic change, or modification of custom, that has affected practically every person in the country. Where marine pearl was in rare use, fresh-water pearl, with its quality and price, came to fill a universal requirement. In one decade pearl buttons were high in price, used only upon the better clothing, and commonly saved when clothing was discarded, while in the most general use were buttons of metal or agate or wood, which rusted or broke or warped. In the next decade good pearl buttons, neat and durable, were available to everybody and used upon the widest variety of clothing. A former luxury had become a common necessity.

Coincident with the rise of the manufacturing industry, there developed an important and widespread fishery, directly employing thousands of persons and indirectly affecting persons and communities of varied occupation. Commencing on the Mississippi River, the fishery gradually spread from stream to stream, passing from depleted territory to new and rich fields, until it embraced practically the entire Mississippi Basin and a portion of the Great Lakes drainage, from Minnesota to Louisiana, north and south, and from Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee on the east to Arkansas, Kansas, and South Dakota on the west.

DEPLETION OF THE RESOURCES.

Extension of territory could not be continued indefinitely. While up to the present time the industry has not failed to obtain shells in quantity sufficient for the market demands, it has become perfectly clear that the perpetuation of the industry as one producing a staple product that is both good and within reach of all people depends upon successful propagation and effective protection. The supply is now maintained by regularly invading new territory (and it is scarcely possible to go farther in this direction), by seeking out the smaller tributaries of the mussel streams, which could not formerly have been worked with profit, and in some measure by the devising of methods that are more effective in capture of mussels. Notwithstanding these developments, all of which indeed conduce to more exhaustive fishery, an increasing proportion of very small shells is being taken, the bottoms are being more thoroughly cleaned, and the price of shell has advanced to a relatively high figure.

A high price for shell has, of course, its advantages. It is good for the fishermen, provided they can find the shells, and it stimulates the manufacturers to eliminate waste and to use the most economical methods. On the other hand, if unbalanced by protective restrictions, a continued rise in price is of disastrous consequence. It impoverishes the beds by driving the fishermen to the most exhaustive manner of fishing; even the very smallest shells that can be captured, which should never be removed from the beds, are taken and marketed, and this, unfortunately, is the actual case at the present time. (See pl. I.) Ultimately the higher price of shell becomes an element in the price of the finished product and is paid by the public at large without corresponding advantage to a single person connected with the industry.

Part 2

Let it be repeated that a high price to the fishermen is desirable, but in the present condition they reap no benefit. A higher price for a disproportionately smaller product brings no added profit. None are so directly interested in the conservation of mussels as the fishermen themselves.

Of what advantage is it to the fishermen of the Wabash River, or to the State of Indiana, that shells are now more valuable, when a river that once supported a really important shelling industry is now practically depleted? Wherein is the benefit to Illinois, when only one fisherman can engage in shelling to-day where six worked with profit five years ago? What profit will Arkansas find, when its rivers are now the scene of the most exhaustive mussel fishery ever known and the future is being robbed by the removal of infant shells that are shipped to the markets to be subsequently thrown into the discard by the manufacturers as too small for any useful purpose?

THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY.

An earlier general interest in the subject would have been awakened had there been a better knowledge of the importance of shelling industries to the communities at large. As an illustration, the case of Madison, Ark., may be mentioned. The town itself has a population of about 300 and is supported by lumbering, farming, and fishing industries. During each of the past two years shells and pearls have been marketed at this place to the value of about $20,000. This was a crop that could be counted upon regardless of weather conditions during the season, and it constituted a substantial element in the income of the community at large. Can this income be counted upon in the future? A dozen years ago fishermen made their wages when shells brought $4 per ton, and they can do no better at this time, when they receive $23 per ton. In 1913 they took 200 to 300 pounds per day, where originally they made daily hauls of 1,000 to 1,800 pounds. The shells are now, it appears, about one-sixth as abundant as they were a dozen years ago. This is a rapid rate of depletion, and it is evident that the future can have little to offer unless something is done to insure the self-perpetuation of the mussel beds.

The town of Black Rock, Ark., which has a population of about 1,000, offers an illustration where both fishing and manufacture are involved. It is estimated that approximately $50,000 is brought into the town and the territory about it each year, of which by far the greater amount is paid out in the town of Black Rock itself. What does the future hold for this place? Reliable information shows that while a few years ago a sheller could take 1,200 pounds or more per day from the Black River at Black Rock, the daily catches now run from 100 to 200 pounds. Although shells are bringing about $20 per ton, there is scarcely a daily wage to be made, and as a consequence the shell fishery immediately about Black Rock is almost negligible. The shelling is now prosecuted principally above Black Rock, in the upper waters and tributaries of the Black River, as about Pocahontas and elsewhere. The process of depletion is unchecked and the condition is clearly such as to awaken the enlightened sentiment of the community and the State at large to support measures that will insure permanent life and prosperity to the industry. Here is a business that yields a relatively fixed return in comparison with agricultural industries, which are so generally affected, favorably or unfavorably, by the vicissitudes of weather conditions.

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