Don Hubbs, Robert Todd, and C. Freddie Couch, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Ellington Agricultural Center, PO Box 40747, Nashville, TN 37204

Abstract. Commercial harvest of freshwater mussel shells has grown into a multi-million dollar business in Tennessee. Mussel shells harvested in Tennessee are shipped to Japan and other countries. Once there, they are cut and polished into beads that are surgically implanted into marine oysters to form cultured pearls. Annual harvest varies according to market demand; normally 1,500 to 4,000 tons are exported from Tennessee each year. Approximately 50% of the shells exported from the United States are harvested in Tennessee. This harvest drives an industry that employs 2,000 to 3,000 people and produces revenues exceeding $60 million a year in Tennessee. Intensive harvesting of freshwater mussels has routinely depleted areas of their legal-sized commercial shell stocks. Greater than 90% of Tennessee's mussel harvest occurs on Kentucky Reservoir whose mussel stocks are harvested almost immediately after attaining legal size. Large mussel shells have become increasingly valuable as supplies dwindle. This disparity in the price of legal and plus legal-sized mussel shells and non uniformity of shell size limits among states has lead to increased violations of closed harvest areas within Tennessee and other states, increasing shell prices, and harvest rate correlates with elevated violation of commercial mussel regulations. In response to this growing problem the major shell producing states of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee have recognized disparity in shell size limits as a major factor in illegal harvest of mussel populations. To rectify this situation, the states met in 1996 along with several other shell producing states and decided to work toward uniform size regulations for the major categories of commercial mussel shell.