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“Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly....” This is how a song from the musical Show Boat starts.
And it’s true: many fish and birds do swim in and fly over the Mississippi. The Mississippi River valley is home to 241 fish species. It is also home to 37 mussel species and 45 amphibian species. Fifty mammal species live here, too. Also, 60 percent of the nation’s birds that migrate (move with the seasons) pass through here.
▲ Mississippi Flyway
Every year, millions of birds fly along the Mississippi River. They also fly along streams that enter the Mississippi. It’s part of their fall and spring migrations. Ducks, pelicans, swans, and cormorants use the river’s large open-water pools. Geese, black terns, and many songbirds use shallow backwater wetlands. Other songbirds use bottomland forests. So do ospreys, mallards, and wood ducks. Herons and egrets use both backwater wetlands and bottomland forests. Some birds are migrating. Others are nesting. Shown above are Canada geese traveling along the flyway.
▲ Bowfin
The river runs from north to south. During glacial periods, fish headed to the warmer lower river. When the water warmed up, they returned north. The fossil records of many Mississippi River fish date back 5 to 25 million years. Some fish species older than the glaciers still live in the Upper Mississippi River. They include long- and short-nosed gar, sturgeon, paddlefish, crappie, and spotted bass. The bowfin is the last member of a family of fish from the Jurassic Period. That was 180 million years ago. A swim bladder allows them to breathe air. This makes it possible for them to live in foul water. Such water would kill most other fish.
▲ Mussels
Four mussel species are native to the river: the pink heelsplitter, the wabash, the pigtoe, and the fat mucket. Nonnative zebra mussels are threatening native species. The smaller zebra mussels pile on top of the larger native mussels. This keeps them from breathing and kills them.
▲ Great Egret
The Upper Mississippi is a nesting and feeding area for great blue herons. Great egrets nest and feed there, too. These birds use their beaks to spear fish. Then they swallow the fish whole.
▲ Silver Maple
There are many different species of trees in the Mississippi River floodplain. Silver maple is the most common one.
▲ Least Tern
The endangered least tern is doing much better now. In 1989, there were just 2,000 along the lower Mississippi River. Today, the area is home to about 20,000 of these birds!
◀ Crayfish
Also called crawfish or crawdads, these little creatures are related to lobsters. Some folks make them into a thick soup called bisque. People also like them boiled. They eat the little critters with their fingers.
▲ Louisiana Black Bear
This animal is a subspecies of the black bear. It is on the U.S. Endangered Species List. These bears were heavily hunted, and their woodland homes were logged and turned into farmland.
◀ Troubled Waters
Like many rivers, the Mississippi’s health has suffered. Sewage and pollution from farms and factories have spilled into its waters. These poisons are bad for the people along the river. They’re also bad for the animals and plants that live in and by the river. Pollution from pesticides caused birds to lay eggs with thin shells that cracked easily. Thanks to government regulations and many volunteers and conservation groups, the river is cleaner today than it has been in 40 years. But, there is still a lot of work to be done to make the river healthy.
