I went to Muscatine, Iowa on a work trip once. There was a restaurant there called Button Factory. It was housed in a former button factory. Pretty old building. The bar top had an epoxy inlay with embedded buttons that were produced in the factory.
The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.
I recently learned about using mussels for buttons when I visited the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa and have been wondering since: can Zebra Mussels be used for buttons? That would create (even more) economic incentive to go after them.
In college, I worked as a lab assistant for a professor studying them. I spent a lot of time counting microscopic young, scraping adults off of traps, measuring and weighing them before cracking them open to scoop out their insides and weighing them.
These little fellows are, in general, small. I guess they can get 50mm (2in), but most aren't that large and they have thin shells.
Further, I'd be somewhat afraid that creating products from them would spread the invasive species even further. The professor I worked for studied them because of their invasiveness - the lakes he set traps on were obviously spread by people. They spread easily by the water in boats - microscopic young means people don't know they spread them.
As noted in the article, plastic buttons displaced buttons made from clamshells long ago. I doubt a market for zebra mussel buttons could make any dent on the population.
> TLDR: Consequently many freshwater mussel species are now extinct
The problem with the DR part of TLDR is that you miss a lot of detail. There are more factors than just the button industry.
> To survive past the larvae stage, they must become parasites that attach themselves to fish. If the fish populations are declining, that oftentimes has an indirect effect on mussel abundance
> the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deepened the rivers and constructed a system of dams, destroying the habitats of mussels that had evolved to live in shallower waters.
The river I live next to had the same thing happen. The mussel populations aren't what they once were (said to be hundreds per square meter back in the 1800's). There was also button factories along the river, and they briefly tried pearl farming. The big problem was pollution, dams, etc. as you say. The river is better now than it's been since I was born - and more dams are being removed year by year.
Regarding the dams, I recommend the book "Cadillac Desert" to anyone even remotely curious about the background and scale of water projects in the US. It's not boring despite the what the subject matter might suggest.
The meal was pretty good. The restaurant closed in 2012.
These little fellows are, in general, small. I guess they can get 50mm (2in), but most aren't that large and they have thin shells.
Further, I'd be somewhat afraid that creating products from them would spread the invasive species even further. The professor I worked for studied them because of their invasiveness - the lakes he set traps on were obviously spread by people. They spread easily by the water in boats - microscopic young means people don't know they spread them.
The problem with the DR part of TLDR is that you miss a lot of detail. There are more factors than just the button industry.
> To survive past the larvae stage, they must become parasites that attach themselves to fish. If the fish populations are declining, that oftentimes has an indirect effect on mussel abundance
> the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deepened the rivers and constructed a system of dams, destroying the habitats of mussels that had evolved to live in shallower waters.
> Increasingly polluted waters also took a toll.
Massachusetts has a nice page about the Eastern Pearlshell.
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/eastern-pearlshell
In the town of Sandisfield MA, I've found live mussels in the Clam River - which was named due mistakenly identity.
But the part that confirms the audiences biases and earns upvotes made it through and that's what matters.
It's basically a more shameless version of most industry reporting if you think about it.
Best not to think about it though. The world is nicer that way.