No one said regrowing Southern California’s endangered native abalone populations in labs would be easy.
The Aquarium of the Pacific and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium both failed to coerce white abalone adults to spawn in this year’s annual attempt. Since abalone only breed at certain times of the year, they will wait until 2018 to try again.
But all is not lost for the beloved species — only found in waters off Southern California and Baja.
“We definitely had a banner year despite the lack of spawning Thursday,” Kristin Aquilino, a scientist heading the regional effort at UC Davis’ Bodega Marine Laboratory. “Since March, we spawned more than 20,000 juveniles. It’s definitely the most we’ve ever had.”
The Bodega Bay facility does the lion’s share of white abalone breeding throughout the year, while aquariums around the state contribute to the stock once annually.
White abalone were a staple of the Southern Californian diet and culture until they decimated by fishing in the 1970s.
Their black, red, green, pink and pinto cousins are rarely found anymore off the coast, where they were once so prevalent that surfers would easily pull a few off a tidal rock to take home after a morning in the water.
But federal and state fishery managers have been working with local environmental organizations and universities for years to revive a species once synonymous with life in Southern California.
UC Davis has been the hub of white abalone restoration efforts for six years. With the help of the Long Beach and San Pedro aquariums, and others, they have accumulated thousands of young abalone.
The lab-grown sea snails will be planted in the ocean to rebuild their species. But, first, researchers have to understand everything they can about what makes the animals tick so they will thrive in the wild.
One of the biggest challenges with building a healthy stock has been growing enough health adults to provide genetic diversity.
Last year, they expanded their handful of healthy breeding adults — a milestone moment for the effort. The progress has led NOAA’s Fisheries Service to pursue a permit allowing the researchers to begin planting abalone off Palos Verdes and other areas.
Meanwhile, related work by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife and The Bay Foundation has had success planting green and red abalone along the coast. Their research into discerning the differences among the abalone species is helping the work being done to understand white abalone.
“NOAA sits on top of the whole effort, tries to keep track of it all, and makes sure we’re not redundant in the work we do,” said Melissa Neuman, NOAA’s abalone recovery coordinator. “We’re looking at what areas are best to plant them.”
White, red and green abalone all have slightly different food sources and favored habitats, researchers believe.
“Getting a high probability of survival is the most important thing,” Newman said.
Lab spawning isn’t a romantic process.
On Thursday, aquarists at the Long Beach aquarium isolated four abalone — two males and two females — in four individual buckets next to one another. Abalone “broadcast spawn,” meaning they shoot dense clouds of eggs and sperm into the water.
They rely on close proximity, as the plumes intermingle and fertilization occurs. In the wild, females produce hundreds of thousands of eggs each time they spawn. Nearly all of them die shortly after spawning.
At Aquarium of the Pacific, Sandy Trautwein, curator of fish and invertebrates, spent Thursday working over the four buckets of plate-sized abalone.
She mimicked tidal flows by dehydrating and rehydrating them. Then, used little hydrogen peroxide to stimulate their reproductive organs before a final washing.
The method has worked countless times before. But, there are no guarantees. The abalone refused to spawn.
“It’s up to the abalone,” Trautwein said. “It’s up to them whether they release eggs.”
Nearby, juveniles — the size of pencil erasers — which were spawned in previous years sat on rocks in their tanks. The aquarium sends most of its juvenile white abalone to Bodega Bay, but it keeps a few for display.
“We only have a chance once a year to try this,” she said. “So we’ll try again next year.”