A million dollar fine will be used in restocking and studying
freshwater mussels. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
A million dollar fine will be used in restocking and studying freshwater
mussels. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
A Japanese-owned company called Tennessee Shell Company has paid the first
installment of the million dollar fine. The company pleaded guilty to
illegally harvesting freshwater mussels in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and
West Virginia. The company places mussel shell material in oysters to grow
cultured pearls. Chuck Traxler is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He
says the money from the fine won’t just go into the the agency’s general
account.
“The entire amount will be used for mussel research. This is unique
in that these funds are going to be used to help the species that was
damaged.”
Besides being over-harvested, native mussel populations have declined
because of poor water quality and because of invasive species such as the
zebra mussel.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.