Nebraska Game and Parks Mussel Study

May 1, 2021

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From Bryan Sweet, Fish and Wildlife Program Manager – North Platte State Fish Hatchery

Nebraska Game and Parks have been culturing and reintroducing native mussel back into the “wild” for a few years. All mussels released are tagged to identify hatchery origin. PIT Tags are used for a portion of the release to allow for recapture. Locating the general area of the mussels with a Biomark BP Plus antenna worked well, but the pinpoint locating to allow them to be dug from the substrate was somewhat an issue in some streams.

“Working with the folks at Biomark, we came up with a solution,” said Bryan Sweet. After explaining the issue, a wand antenna was built that works in conjunction with the BP Plus portable antenna. A selector switch allows the user to toggle between antennas to easily locate buried mussels. The second antenna design was to build a dual coil BP Plus antenna; a second small antenna inside the standard antenna, again controlled with a switch. “So far they have performed well, we have been able to dig all mussels located, whereas in the past only a percentage of the “hits” were located,” explained Sweet.

Our PIT Tags can be used to track just about any species out there. Biomark works hard to come up with the best monitoring solutions for your unique study. Talk with one of our Biomark experts to see what solutions we have for you!

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