Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Missouri
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

This project will assess the ability of aquatic organisms, including fish hosts of rare freshwater mussels, to move through an engineered bypass reach in the Big Piney River of Missouri. There is currently a fish passage barrier at the site in the form a water intake weir. We will use stationary passive integrated transponder antenna arrays to determine if focal species of fish and amphibians are able to successfully use the bypass in both upstream and downstream directions. Results of this work will inform local managers of potential barriers to aquatic organism movement, thus allowing them to take alternate measures if organism passage is not feasible given the installed design