Recovery Strategies

Recovery Strategy for Northern Riffleshell (Epioblasma rangiana), Snuffbox (Epioblasma triquetra), Round Pigtoe (Pleurobema sintoxia), Salamander Mussel (Simpsonaias ambigua) and Rayed Bean (Villosa fabalis) in Canada

Freshwater mussels are among the world’s most imperiled taxa with declines reported on a global scale (Bogan 1993; Lydeard et al. 2004). The rich unionid fauna of North America has been hit particularly hard with over 70% of the approximately 300 species showing evidence of declines with many now considered rare, endangered, threatened or imperiled (Allan and Flecker 1993; Williams et al. 1993). Canada is home to 55 unionid species, 41 of which can be found in the province of Ontario with 18 species having Canadian distributions restricted to this province. The rivers of southwestern Ontario, primarily those draining into Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, are home to the richest unionid assemblages in Canada. The Sydenham River has historically been considered to be the richest unionid river in all of Canada (Clarke 1992) with a total species count of 34 (Metcalfe-Smith et al. 2003), however, recent evidence suggests that the Grand (Metcalfe-Smith et al. 2000) and Thames rivers, also with historic species counts of 34, were equally diverse.

Consultation period: 2018-05-24 to 2018-07-23

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Director
SARA Directorate
Department of Fisheries and Oceans
200 Kent St.
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0E6
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