Freshwater mussels are integral to the river ecosystems in ST

Croix national scenic riverway (sacn) and thus, sacn has prioritized freshwater mussels as their highest wildlife management issue. Although the mussel assemblage in the ST. Croix river has been studied in places, little survey work has been conducted on one of its largest tributaries, the namekagon river (approximately 100 miles). The goal of this project is to provide the public and scientific community with the knowledge, awareness, and understanding of current namekagon river native and invasive mussel distribution information and datasets for scientific use and application. There are three project objectives: 1) conduct a snorkel survey of the namekagon river to locate and map mussel bed locations, and estimate mussel relative abundance as low, medium, or high at each location 2) using mussel relative abundance estimates from objective 1., conduct timed searches at 10 randomly chosen sites from each of low, medium, and high relative abundance sites to describe namekagon river mussel assemblages. Timed searches will describe live and dead mussel species, evidence of recruitment, and qualitative habitat covariate data and 3) conduct targeted sampling at a few locations, e.g., namekagon river reach between trego-earl and control site. The locations and kind of sampling to be done at targeted reaches will be determined with additional information and discussion among project partners. This agreement fulfills a public purpose of support and economic stimulation by 1) developing data that will be shared through a variety of strategies to increase public awareness, knowledge, and support for natural resource stewardship of the national parks. Datasets from this project will be publicly available, as appropriate, and include species data in a simplified global biodiversity information facility darwin core archive format and geotagged photographs 2) gaining new knowledge for the larger scientific community through research and disseminated results of natural resource information. Results and interpreted information from this project will be published in the NPS natural resource report series and thus made available to the larger scientific community and 3) assisting in the creation, promotion, facilitation, and or improvement of the publics understanding of natural resource management and other aspects of areas such as ecological conservation areas, and state and local parks. The results of this project will be used to inform the public of the science behind natural resource management actions at sacn and may inform actions by other entities managing land in the ST. Croix watershed.