![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784968487_251_default.jpg\")
Jason Barnucz is a mussel biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He’s holding an orange viewer, which is used to locate mussels or other objects in the river. (Jessica Singer\/CBC)<\/p>\nHundreds of endangered mussels were released in the Medway Creek, which connects to the Thames River, in London, Ont., on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first time in Canada that a freshwater mussel has been brought back to its lost habitat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a huge milestone. I get a little weepy about this,\u201d said Jason Barnucz, a mussel biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).<\/p>\n
\u201cToday feels like a big event, like a wedding.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been around 20 years since the endangered mussel has been in the Thames River watershed. The last time it was collected alive in the river was in 2008, but the mussels were not reproductive, said Todd Morris, a research scientist with DFO.<\/p>\n
Morris said the species was last found reproductive in the Thames River around 40 to 50 years ago. If all goes well and the new mussels are able to survive in the creek, he hopes they will create offspring over the next year to three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that eventually, these animals form a self-sustaining population here and that they begin to spread,\u201d said Morris. <\/p>\n
Mussels crucial to biodiversity<\/p>\n
Barnucz said the kidneyshell plays an important role in protecting biodiversity in the Thames watershed. The little creature can filter up to 40 litres of water each day, he said, removing harmful pollutants from the river and providing a healthy habitat for fish and other animals.<\/p>\n
Jason Barnucz is a mussel biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He’s holding an orange viewer, which is used to locate mussels or other objects in the river. (Jessica Singer\/CBC)<\/p>\n
The nearly 800 mussels that were brought to the creek were about 11-years-old, and spent their entire lives in captivity before they were released into the wild on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The 11-year-old mussels\u2019 mothers were collected from the Sydenham River, which runs in Chatham-Kent, Lambton County and Middlesex County.<\/p>\n
Before the mussels were brought back to Medway Creek, they were only found in two rivers in Canada, the Sydenham River and the Ausable River, which also runs through southwestern Ontario.<\/p>\n
The kidneyshell lives for about 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local watershed initiatives ‘at risk’, says UTRCA<\/p>\n
Handfuls of volunteers waded into the foot-deep water wearing chest waders, and carefully placed hundreds of mussels on the bottom of the river.<\/p>\n
Brian Petrie, the chair of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority (UTRCA), was also on site when the mussels were released. The UTRCA is one of 36 conservation authorities that will be consolidated into nine by the Ontario government. The new authorities will be operational by 2027.<\/p>\n
Petrie said wildlife initiatives across the province must continue to include local knowledge once consolidation happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat local knowledge and that local initiatives across the watershed, and certainly this type of work, may not be considered mandatory by the province,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis work is at risk, funding\u2019s at risk, and really, the benefits to our watershed are at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of endangered mussels were released in the Medway Creek, which connects to the Thames River, in London,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-824889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}