They were hunted to
near-extinction. Now a £3.5m project aims to let the Scottish molluscs flourish
again
Saturday 13 August
201622.48 BST
The sun shines on clear river
water running through a valley in the Cairngorms, bringing the stones on the
river bed into colourful focus. Here and there are dark shadows, half-buried
clusters of dull black shells, lined and gouged by decades of shifting water
and gravel: the pearl mussels of the river Dee.
The pearl mussel is one of the
most ancient invertebrates on the planet, a freshwater shellfish that has
helped to shape the history of Britain. One pearl mussel in every 1,000 or
5,000 – no one can be sure – lives up to its name and contains a lustred
treasure. Julius Caesar’s biographer, Suetonius, cites a desire for pearls as
one of the reasons why the Romans invaded Britain in 55BC.
But pearl hunting, pollution and
habitat destruction have almost led to the mussel’s extinction. It has been
illegal to pearl fish and to sell or buy a Scottish pearl since 1998, but their
numbers remain perilously low. This week or the next, some of the remaining
female mussels along all 86 miles of the Dee will spawn – all at once. On just
one day a year, they release millions of tiny larvae, or glochidia, into the
water.
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