This summer, the first 1000 juvenile mussels will be released into the River Kent as part of the LIFE R4ever Kent project. In preparation for this, all mussels must be tagged with a unique number on one side of their shell, and a PIT tag on the other side, which allows us to detect mussels once they are buried in the riverbed. Once mussels are tagged, they are placed into a flume system where they will remain until the day of their release.
At the end of April, the FBA set up the Kent mussel flume, which acts as a mock river system. In the flume, propagated mussels destined for the River Kent will encounter laminar water flow and flow diversity and will need to learn to bury into the sediment; this is an essential part of their preparation for being released into the wild. It exposes the juvenile mussels to river conditions that they will experience once they are released, minimising the shock associated with being moved to a new environment.
