The 20th anniversary of the Ontario Freshwater Mussel Identification workshop was held last week in the Sydenham River, just outside of Dresden.
The workshop included Dr. Todd Morris, of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and his team, who have been coming back to the site, along with another site near Florence, for the past two decades.
Sydenham Current owner Dana Haggith took some time to participate in the workshop during their stop in Dresden, which was located at the bridge on Dawn Mills Road, near Croton.
There are typically about 25 people a year in attendance, including: academics, environmental consultants, naturalist groups, students and people who want to learn about freshwater mussels from all over.
The focus of the workshop is on mussel identification.
There are 41 species in Ontario today and the site outside of Dresden is one of the most well-known sites in all of Canada and has been studied since the late 60s, early 70s.
It’s a two-day workshop, with the first day held in Burlington at the Canada Center for Inland Waters, which is their office.
The participants take part in an in-class portion, where they view specimens of all of the Ontario species, a number of stations set up by identification characteristics.
The second day of the workshop is out in the field, or out in the river in this case.
“It’s a bit of a drive, but the river is so special that it’s so worth it,” Dr. Morris said.
“This is where we show all the ID characteristics on live animals. It’s much nicer.”
The group is usually split up between Dresden and the Florence site, but because of all the rain and flooding at the Florence site, the Dresden location was busier than usual for this year’s workshop.
Dr. Morris’s crew was working on cordoned off portion at the site, but workshop participants had the opportunity to ask questions, see how it was done.
Dr. Morris said the mussels are important ecological components of the river, as each of these animals can filter up to 40 liters of water a day.
The presence of the muscles also act to stabilize the stream bottom, Dr. Morris added.
“I was able to join them for about 45 minutes and I was able to touch and see these different species,” Haggith said.
Check out the video created by Haggith from her experience and listen to an interview with Dr. Morris, below:
Here are some more photos from the workshop:
Anyone interested can learn more and view a sped up video of mussels filtering water in a tank along with clear up close photos of many species, here.
