Commercial Mussel Fishery — Mississippi River 



Historical Perspective . The history of the commercial mussel indus- 

 try on the Mississippi River is similar to that of the industry on the 

 Illinois River. On both rivers this industry was unstable. A number of 

 factors, most notably overharvesting, resulted in a dramatic decline of 

 this fishery shortly after its inception. As on the Illinois River, the 

 establishment of new markets in the early 1960 's led to a revival in mus- 

 sel fishing. A map in Lopinot (1968: 7) shows that the Mississippi River 

 above the confluence with the Missouri was fished commercially for mussels 

 in the 1960's, so the 1960 's revival in the commercial mussel fishery 

 included portions of the study area. 



Mussel fishing on the Mississippi River began about 1889 near Musca- 

 tine, Iowa. The fishery grew rapidly and by 1897 more than 300 people 

 were engaged in mussel fishing on the Mississippi River between Burlington 

 and Clinton, Iowa (Carlander, 1954: 40). By 1900 mussel fishing on the 

 river had extended as far south as Grafton, Illinois (Townsend, 1902: 678). 



Surveys on the river after 1899 indicated that mussel beds were de- 

 clining (Carlander, 1954: 45). In response to the depleted condition of 

 the resource, the Fairport Biological Station was established at Fairport, 

 Iowa, in 1908 by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. The Fairport Station con- 

 ducted research on mussel propagation but mussel harvests continued to 

 decline. The degradation of mussel beds was generally attributed to over- 

 harvesting and increasing pollution (Carlander, 1954: 40, 41, 48). By 

 1946 there was very little mussel fishing in the Mississippi River below 

 Muscatine and most of the shells worked by the button plants in Iowa during 

 the 1950' s were shipped in from Tennessee and Arkansas (Carlander, 1954: 51) 



As on the Illinois River, the pearl-culture industry markets that 

 were established in the early 1960's led to an increase in commercial 

 mussel fishing activity on the Mississippi River. However, the rise in 

 mussel harvests on the Mississippi did not reach the level attained on 

 the Illinois and Wabash Rivers during this period (Lopinot, 1968: 10). 



Pre- and Post-Dam Mussel Harvests . Early mussel-harvest informa- 

 tion for the Mississippi River is sketchy but it is obvious that this 

 industry underwent phenomenal growth in the 1890' s. Although little 



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