Mussel Die Off_Lake Cumberland?

[FlyLie]

While out on the lake this week, I saw thousands of small, dime sized bits of "white meat" floating on the surface. No shell, just meat. This was new to me. Collected a few and they looked like mussels to me. Stopped by the dam and showed them to a KDFWF employee, who confirmed they were mussels. When asked why they would die off, she said most likely, "lack of oxygen". Interesting......?

As I know nothing about the life cycle of mussels, and not wanted to go off half cocked, thought I would submitt it to the board members for comments. Is this an annual event or unique to this point in time as a result of lake conditions? As Paul Harvey would say "Here's the rest of the story".

RECIEVED THE FOLLOWING RESPONSE FORM KDFWR...THANKS TO MARY, MONTE AND JOHN AT KDFWR.

Williams, John (FW) to Monte, Dave, Mary, me
show details 12:21 PM (4 hours ago)

Monte,

Here are some temp/DO profiles of Lake Cumberland from early this week. Oxygen becomes very limiting around 35-40 feet deep on the lower end of the lake. I'm not sure how deep the Asian clams (Corbicula) typically occur in lake Cumberland but it is certainly possible that they died from lack of oxygen if they were 35-40 feet deep.

We noticed the floating mussel bodies while we were on the lower end of the lake Tuesday. I'm confident they were Corbicula. The banks in the affected areas were lined with Corbicula shells.

John

John D. Williams, District Biologist
KY Dept. of Fish & Wildlife Resources
Southeastern Fishery District
2073 North Hwy. 25W
Williamsburg, KY 40769
606-549-1332
[email protected]

WILL POST ?ATTACHMET? ONCE RECEIVED.

[JoeB]

Was told last week while at the lake KDFW was there early last week checking oxygen
levels coming out of Wolf Creek Dam.
They reported the oxygen level is 9% way off from the 18-20% the aquatic life needs to
survive. We are going to see a big fish fish kill this Fall ,it;s just a matter of time.
Striperjoe

Joe, It's WAY too early to state that there is going to be a big fish kill this year. It's really not a matter of whether the fish can tollerate low oxygen, it's whether they can survive warm water. The upper levels of the lake have plenty of O2. It's really been a mild summer, and it seems the worst is over. If the lake doesn't warm up considerably, I think we're going to make it through the storm. Phil.