A multi-million pound reintroduction programme to help endangered pearl mussels has been hailed a success by a conservation organisation.<\/p>\n
Natural England invested \u00a313m in targeted projects, including boosting freshwater pearl mussels in Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and Durham. <\/p>\n
A single adult mussel can filter 50 litres of river water a day and they remove bacteria that threaten aquatic ecosystems.<\/p>\n
Ginny Swaile, of Natural England, said the pearl mussel project is “proving that saving endangered species and improving water quality are not separate goals”.<\/p>\n
Mussels, which can live for more than half a century, have been reintroduced across the north of England and Cumbria which hosts 90% of the wild population.<\/p>\n
The location of their whereabouts is kept secret by conservation groups because of the threat of them being harvested for their pearls.<\/p>\n
The MaST (Margaritifera, Salar, Trutta) project on the River Rede, a tributary of the River Tyne, has an innovative way of reintroducing pearl mussels to a waterway.<\/p>\n
Ms Swaile said: “The project in the Rede catchment exemplifies innovative species recovery in action. <\/p>\n
“By creating wetland habitat and addressing agricultural pollution sources, we’re not just saving critically endangered mussels – we’re building the foundation for thriving salmon and trout populations.”<\/p>\n
Larvae mussels attach themselves to the gills of salmon and trout during a crucial stage of their lifecycle.<\/p>\n
Conservation projects are also ongoing at the Wansbeck, Coquet, Till Breamish and Tweed rivers.<\/p>\n
Other critically important species like the European eel, Atlantic salmon, brown trout, river lamprey and otter are also benefitting from cleaner waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A multi-million pound reintroduction programme to help endangered pearl mussels has been hailed a success by a conservation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-90740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}