Collaborative mussel project at Dale Hollow NFH

Hatchery staff and TWRA Cumberland River Aquatic Center (C-RAC) are working to fill the Dale Hollow NFH boat house with as many of the grow-out population as possible. The grow-out cohorts this year are progeny derived from the intensive culture efforts rather than the captured manual fish infestation previously employed to populate the rearing structure structure
Something temporarily or permanently constructed, built, or placed; and constructed of natural or manufactured parts including, but not limited to, a building, shed, cabin, porch, bridge, walkway, stair steps, sign, landing, platform, dock, rack, fence, telecommunication device, antennae, fish cleaning table, satellite dish/mount, or well head.

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The controlled approach has a number of advantages:

• Eliminate potential introduction of invasive vertebrates
• Eliminate potential introduction of unmonitored genetics
• Removes all horizontal disease transmission potential
• Shifts stu dies from random to fixed/monitored allowing for real-time introduction of different control elements
• Adds predictability and structure to support, cleaning, inventory, and stocking requirements
• Increases potential future rearing capacity

TWRA conducted a full inventory this month and decided to hold the remainder of the mussels at Dale Hollow through the winter. The goal at Dale Hollow remains to try to fill the boat-house to max capacity, but we only reached 25% fill this year.

Next year’s plan is to:

• Request some central coordination assistance
• Collaborate with the growing friend’s group and local US Army Corps of Engineers to build some infrastructure improvements
• Power supply line repair (240v)
• Working plank expansion
• Small sampling craft
• Completion of winch suspension system
• Building out more cages

End of Year retention summary