Nat Geo Photographer Highlights Aquatic Animals in Seven-State Region

At 10 p.m. on a muggy May night, she took center stage.

Flash bulbs popped as she eased her silky white foot from her shell and probed the glass tank. Behind her, in coolers fitted with bubblers, waited other mussels, fish, snails and aquatic insects.

“Coosa creekshell, female,” Todd Amacker, TVA aquatic endangered species biologist, said.

National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore typed the creature’s information into his computer, adding it to the thousands of other species he has logged worldwide as part of his Photo Ark project since 2006.

“Collected from?” Sartore asked.

“Conasauga River,” Amacker said. “In the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia.”

“It hasn’t been seen in that part of the National Forest in about 20 years,” Matt Reed, TVA aquatic ecologist, said.

“And that’s why we’re here,” Sartore said, nodding to the mussel’s image. “To get people to care about the least among us.”

Joel Sartore photographs a mussel during a late-night photography session for National Geographic’s Photo Ark project.

A Voice for All

Sartore has partnered with organizations across the globe, including TVA, to document every species living in zoos, aquariums and wildlife sanctuaries.

His National Geographic Photo Ark project has documented over 16,000 species so far.

On this night, in TVA’s aquatics lab near Chattanooga, he worked with biologists from TVA and state and federal agencies to photograph even more.

Day and night for three days, crews arrived from the far reaches of the Valley region, hauling coolers brimming with rare aquatic insects, colorful fish and elusive mussels that they’d then return to their home rivers.

They included Cumberland snubnose and sooty darters. Northern studfish.

Two mussels – the Wabash pigtoe and the pimpleback – from the Tennessee River.

“We're so privileged to work in one of the most biodiverse places in the temperate world,” Jon Michael Mollish, TVA fisheries biologist, said. “This is always my favorite week of the year. It's an amazing project in an amazing place for aquatics.”

A stonefly larva, an aquatic macroinvertebrate, perches on a biologist’s hand during a stream survey at Sheeds Creek in the Cherokee National Forest.

‘Man on a Mission’

For Sartore, now in his fourth year collaborating with TVA and others in the region, the Photo Ark is a chance to capture the essence of these animals in hopes more people will act to save them.

“We all need the same thing as these mussels do, and these stream fish do,” he said.

Yet many people don’t know these creatures exist, let alone the vital role they play in keeping rivers healthy for humans.

“What can we do that would allow these animals to have equal voice?” Sartore asked when he began.

Over the years, he has honed his technique.

He focuses on the animal’s gaze, uses simple black and white backgrounds, and fills the frame with the animal’s body so it commands respect.

Sartore started with a goal to photograph 12,000 species.

“It’s gone up and up and up,” he said. “The world’s added more aquariums and more zoos, more wildlife rehabbers.”

As the hour grew late, Mollish and fellow TVA fisheries biologist Kevin Parr eased a bright female scarlet shiner fish into a tank and nudged her gently into position.

Sartore ducked under a hood to keep his image from reflecting off the glass, then snapped the shutter in quick staccato. A flash illuminated every scale in the finest detail.

Sartore turned to his fellow photographer, Kim Hubbard, a former National Geographic editor.

“Kim, when am I gonna stop?”

She smiled. “Never.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Sartore asked.

“Because he can’t,” Hubbard said. “He’s a man on a mission.”

Crews from TVA, U.S. Forest Service and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation net fish for the Photo Ark project.

Conserving and Preserving

While Sartore and Hubbard worked in the lab, crews drove, hiked, waded and snorkeled into the remote reaches of TVA’s seven-state service area.

On one particularly hot morning, biologists from three agencies met on the shaded banks of Sheeds Creek, part of the Cherokee National Forest on the Tennessee-Georgia line.

“We have a list of basically everything that Joel has ever photographed,” Amacker said. “We cross-reference that with our databases."

“It's getting tougher and tougher to find things he hasn’t shot,” Mollish said.

But the different agencies relish the challenge – and the opportunity the Photo Ark offers to collaborate.

“We’re all interested in the same thing – conserving and preserving the environment,” Nelson Goodman, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation environmental scientist, said. “And we all have different roles.”

TVA crews monitor threatened and endangered species and hundreds of established river and reservoir sites throughout the region.

U.S. Forest Service crews restore river corridors – such as bringing back large wood habitat in streams across the forest.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation monitors water and air quality trends. And the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency keeps close tabs on aquatic species.

All work in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep species healthy.

“It’s great to work together and know whether the conditions are receding or improving,” Gary Williams, U.S. Forest Service aquatic monitoring specialist, said.

“The opportunities are unlimited,” Amacker said. “It’s awesome.”

Snorkelers Todd Amacker and Matt Reed, of TVA, joined Matt Grove and Gary Williams, of the U.S. Forest Service, to search for rare mussels in the Cherokee National Forest.

‘A Healthy You and Me’

After searching for fish, TVA mussel experts donned wetsuits and bushwacked with the Forest Service biologists to a remote site on the Conasauga River.

“A lot of these fish and mussel species are endemic to this river system, meaning they occur nowhere else on the planet,” Reed said.

He explained that mussels are bioindicators. Finding healthy mussels – and good numbers of them over the decades – means healthy rivers.

“And that means a healthy you and me,” Mollish said.

As they snorkeled the rocky river, the team of biologists found eight mussels, which Anderson Smith, TVA aquatic ecologist, tallied.

TVA biologists keyed them to species based on their shell rays and measured them with calipers as the Forest Service biologists looked on.

“There is such incredible aquatic biodiversity here,” Matt Grove, U.S. Forest Service aquatic biologist, said. “Getting all these folks together is just a great opportunity to get a lot of experience and knowledge in one place."

“It's a win-win,” Doug White, TVA biological compliance senior manager, said. “It helps us build trust. It helps build relationships amongst all of our agencies, which helps all on-the-ground conservation efforts.”

TVA aquatic endangered species biologist Todd Amacker holds a mussel found during the Photo Ark project.

The Future in Photos

For all the success stories in the Photo Ark, there are some species for which time might be running out.

“It's a race,” Sartore said. “As people spread out, we'll see more biodiversity loss.”

The final day of mussel monitoring took biologists into the lower Conasauga. Here, Amacker had found the endangered Southern and Georgia pigtoe in 2019.

“This is magical habitat for mussels,” Amacker said.

Through snorkel masks, biologists scanned the rocky bottom and water-willow grove. They found a hellgrammite – a baby dobsonfly – and a musk turtle.

But in this spot, on this day, no mussels.

All the more reason for TVA and its partners to collaborate on long-term monitoring.

“TVA is consistent and puts muscle behind conservation,” Sartore said. “Conservation has to be intentional. Year after year of monitoring and conservation. It's vital.”

Long-term, coordinated conservation field work takes time and effort – much like photographing tens of thousands of species.

“True change is generational,” Sartore said. “Time will tell. We do all we can today, and we just try. Trying is everything.”

A team member holds a crayfish from the Conasauga River.

PHOTO AT TOP OF PAGE: A greenside darter, by Joel Sartore.