(Music)
The kelp forests and reefs of Southern California are some of the most
biologically rich and diverse underwater areas in the world.
These areas used to support huge populations of abalone.
Today the white abalone is virtually on the edge of extinction.
More than 280 tons of white abalone were taken by scuba and hook up divers in the 1970's.
After seven years of harvesting the adult populations were exhausted and the
harvest drop to near zero.
It was thought that isolated deep-water populations would be able to replenish the stock.
Unfortunately, this thinking was flawed and a large California industry collapsed.
So for the last two days we have been out with the research submarine Delta
looking on deep reefs for these white abalone.
We've spent about 12 hours of searching now and we've only found five live animals
in a place where we would have found
maybe 30 to 50,000 live animals in the 1970's.
This is what's left these shells we found over a hundred of the old shells.
Live white abalone like the one seen here on the rock are spread so far apart that they cannot breed effectively.
If this animal is going to be saved from extinction; drastic measures must be taken.
By using a submarine, scientists from the National Park Service, California Fish and Game, and the United States Geological Survey
are hoping to locate enough white abalone that could be moved to a controlled habitat for breeding.
The search begins with carefully planning submarine dives in the most likely areas defined remote unharvested population.
"It looks like really good rocky habitat that sticks up here northwest end. That's our number one dive tomorrow morning."
Once the sites are picked the dives begin.
The research on these submarine dives is hoping to answer two key questions.
First, are there still pockets of white abalone survivors in reefs deeper than scuba
and local divers usually go. And second, can we find enough survivors to restore
the population and save the species from extinction.
"So each one of these reefs could conceivably have its own self-replicating population of white abalone.
And that's the case we really our job cut out for us.
We are hoping to find out of deep water in some areas that maybe never been dived
Or we'll find old populations of white abalone just living and doing their thing."
After days of searching, the researchers become very discouraged.
Thousands of meters of prime white abalone habitat passed by the windows of the submarine
but mostly empty shells are found.
The monotony generated by hours of searching in vain is occasionally broken
by surprises like this Mola Mola and the sea lion chasing bait fish.
The research support vessel tracks the sub from the surface using an electronic pinger.
They stay close and in contact with voice communications in case of an emergency.
Finally, the search pays off and they start to find some live animals.
A solitary white abalone is found in about a hundred and fifty feet of water.
(Submarine Pilot: "Oh my that right there right there on the rock just went right over it. Awesome. Beautiful." )
All the locations of these solitary live animals
like the one seen here are marked with global position so they could be retrieved later for breeding.
After several hours the sub returns to the surface for service and another researcher.
The cramped space inside the submarine becomes uncomfortable after a few hours.
It's enough live white abalone are found to initiate a breeding program.
The breeding will be done in the controlled environment of a commercial abalone farm.
Like the red abalone shown here.
White abalone collected in the ocean would be placed in tanks to spawn.
When the sperm and eggs are released in a concentrated area reproductive success is ensured.
Once the broadcast spawn has occurred thousands of eggs are fertilized by the
sperm and larval abalone are formed.
The resulting larvae would be placed in various growth tanks and raised to
become the brood stock for new wild population.
In this tank we have they
first phase of raising the abalone really where we take them from the very
young larvae up to a size of about an inch or half an inch.
Where we grown here we grow algae. The micro algae grows on plates
and we settle the larvae right on these plates.
This is a technique was originally developed in Japan.
It's used throughout the world today.
You can see here will bring up this up a little bit.
These are abalone that have grown up on these plates here.
These are little red abalone. They will stay in here for about eight months, to ten months, and possibly as long as twelve months.
Once they get to about this size or even sometimes much smaller even half the size
we can take the abalone off of these plates and switch them to a diet of pure kelp.
The experience that that has already been gained with the different species of abalone shows us
that we can produce large quantities of abalone in a relatively small facility in a relatively small space.
We've also know that once we start to produce abalone in the hatchery you say we get a 3-inch animal
those animals are capable of producing up to a million eggs for female for a spawn.
That's a pretty good spawning pool if you start putting out a thousand those animals together.
we jump ahead by using this sort of approach.
It will take both time and money to rebuild this depleted species.
For success, researchers must find and capture enough of these animals for a diverse broodstock.
Then breed them and raise the next generation and finally release enough large adults
on protected reefs to reestablish self sustaining wild populations.
Is it worth the effort to bring back white abalone?
Ask divers, scientists, and the general public this question and the answer is almost always a resounding yes.
And we need to put a fraction of the money that we got from the resource back into the resource
so we have something for future generation.
White abalone are only the first of many exploited species in jeopardy.
What we learn about restoring them will help us with others.
It is no longer sufficient to simply limit what humans take from the sea.
Blinded by ignorance of the seas ways people unintentionally caused this crisis.
Left alone these few solitary animals will not produce another generation.
Now people must act intentionally to prevent white abalone extinction and to
restore them or they will be lost forever.
(Music)