Ecosystems

To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan

Their rescue effort might just save the river-cleaning mollusks

Mussels in a yellow bag

These mussels got a lot of help to grow large enough to move from a laboratory to a Virginia riverbed.

Gary Peeples/USFWS

By Stephen Ornes

- More than 2 years ago

The emergency surgery took place in the back of a modified pickup truck in a McDonald’s parking lot in Pikeville, Ky. This scrappy plan to rescue a species of mussel on the edge of extinction made perfect sense: Meet somewhere between Indian Creek in Virginia, where the last known wild golden riffleshells lived, and Kentucky’s Center for Mollusk Conservation in Frankfort, where they would be saved.