They're featured on the Crown of Scotland and are rumoured to have led the Romans to invade Britain. Now, a hotel in the Highlands is helping to save the UK's endangered pearls.
It is in these waters sluicing through the Cairngorms that a particularly prized part of the environment exists: freshwater pearl mussels, which are among the planet's most. The jewels in the mussels are rare – about one in 5,000 contains these milky-white treasures – and, as such, they have historically been valued.
"The funny thing about pearl mussels, if you ask anyone in Scotland, most of them don't know they exist," said Annie Armstrong, founder of nature tourism companythat organises excursions for Fife Arms guests."They're kind of this secret, unknown thing." Today, these imperilled mussels are on the verge of extinction – a particularly troubling reality given that they're a keystone species. A single mussel filters 50 litres of water a day and their presence indicates good water quality; if they are at risk, it's a harbinger of a decline in the river's health.
The River Dee was once surrounded by an ancient Caledonian Forest, but many of its trees were removed centuries ago The abundance of trees that once existed here as part of the ancient Caledonian Forest helped the mussels survive by shading, and thus cooling, the River Dee and its tributaries. These lower temperatures increased the dissolved oxygen available to Atlantic salmon, in whose gills pearl mussel larvae live as they mature. But deforestation ran rampant here in the mid-19th Century, when Queen Victoria moved to Balmoral and made open, unforested estates fashionable.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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