White Abalone were once a flourishing marine species along the California coastline, but mankind's insatiable greed for this delicacy has driven them almost to extinction. Fortunately for the white abalone, a consortium of dedicated scientists have taken it upon themselves to mend the damage that their fellow human beings have caused so generations to come may be able to enjoy this animal in the wild.

White abalone (Haliotis sorenseni) are oval shaped mollusks five to nine inches in diameter (Lafferty) and one to two pounds in weight (Cummings). They are found on the west coast of the United States, ranging from California's Channel Islands to Baja California, at depths of  seventy to two hundred feet (Zandonella). They are herbivores feeding mostly on  giant kelp (Maender).  They are gastropods (literally: stomach foot) with powerful muscles that help them suction to rocks, and extremely hard shells. Both these physical characteristics act as good defense mechanisms against their many predators. Juveniles face threats such as crabs, octopi and seastars, while adults face sea otters, bat rays and giant sea bass (Zandonella). Abalone mate by releasing egg or sperm into the water, where the gametes mix and fertilize. If the parents are more than an one yard apart, the sperm and eggs become too diluted and have little chance of meeting (Zandonella). White abalone are fairly immobile and can stay on one rock their entire life. Their life span is thirty to forty years and it takes them approximately four years to reach adulthood (Zandonella). Other species of abalone found along the California coast are reds, flat, pintos, pinks, green and blacks (Dye).

Thirty five years ago the white abalone was a flourishing, healthy species numbering approximately 4.24 million organisms (Science File). Their most threatening natural predator, the sea otter, had been nearly wiped out by humans, and there was a plentiful supply of algae and kelp to dine on. Because they live in deep water, they were hard for the average SCUBA diver to reach. But the white abalone, just like other abalone species, is a very tasty and desirable treat for humans. From 1969 to 1977 divers picked the species clean from the rocky intertidal reefs of the Channel Islands and most other locations. In 1972 alone more than 86,000 white abalone were hauled from the depths, but by 1978 the harvest had dropped to just 3,000 (Zandonella). The over-harvest of the white abalone was so intense that adults could not reproduce at a sustainable rate and the population plummeted.

In 1995 the numbers of white abalone became so low that the California Department of Fish and Game banned commercial and sport harvesting. In 1997 all the other California species followed the whites and were protected by the Department. Only red abalone measuring seven inches were allowed to be collected by sport divers, without the use of tanks (Zandonella). Despite these protective measures, the numbers of white abalone continued to drop. In 2001 their numbers had declined by 99.9% and were predicted to be extinct in ten years without human intervention. On May 29, 2001 the white abalone became the first marine invertebrate added to the Endangered Species List (Cummings).

In 1999, before the abalone went on the Endangered Species List, the Abalone Restoration Consortium, a team of biologists from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Channel Islands Marine Resource Institute (CIMRI), National Park Service (NPS), California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), was formed with a goal: to replenish California with a self-sustaining white abalone population. In October of 1999 they hired a research submarine at 7,000 dollars a day for an abalone hunt. After fourteen days of diving around the Channel Islands they located just 157 abalone. Of these, some were in small colonies but many were living in solitude, without a potential mate in close proximity (Zandonella). The submersible was not agile enough to collect specimens, and more than ninety percent were in water too deep for a SCUBA diver (Dye). The Consortium returned to their previously recorded coordinates in December of 1999 to try to collect some of the located abalone, but were only able to find one. When they found the abalone, a male they later named Abner, they took great care in capturing him. Abalone do not have a blood clotting mechanism, so a cut or scratch can cause them to bleed to death. "When you are picking abalone for food you don't have to worry about them living a long life," said Kevin Lafferty, a marine ecologist for the USGS and UCSB. "But when you are going to bring them into captivity you have to be a lot more careful." He said the trick is to tickle it with a piece of kelp, their favorite food, to loosen it from the rock and pop it off quickly.

The team brought Abner back to UCSB and he joined Abigail, a female abalone donated by a fisherman who had caught her in his nets. Unfortunately Abigail died shortly after the union, but Abner gained five more friends when the consortium went on another dive trip in March of 2000 (Zandonella). By fall of 2001 the team had a total of fifteen mollusks.

White abalone only spawn once a year in late winter or early spring, where females can produce millions of eggs. During spawning, they are very particular about their environmental conditions. They will only spawn under the right temperature, day/night cycle and chemical balance in the water. UCSB molecular biologist Dan Morse engineered a "love potion" of diluted hydrogen peroxide to induce fertilization (Science Files). On April 23, 2001 Tom McCormick of CIMRI, and founder of Proteus Seafarms, brought a female and male to UCSB to join two females and one male, all of whom were reproductively ready. UCSB's Neal Hooker, a researcher at the Marine Biotechnology Center, with twenty five years of experience with abalone, was in charge of the spawning and fertilization process. He placed the five adults in separate tanks and gently scrubbed their shells with a soft-bristle brush to clean them, dimmed the lights and added Morse's hydrogen peroxide love potion. A couple of hours later the CIMRI female and one of the UCSB females spawned about three million eggs each. Shortly after, one of the UCSB males spawned. The sperm and eggs were combined and the team watched as more than ninety five percent of the eggs were fertilized and developed into free-swimming larvae. "It's remarkable to look at six million white abalone larvae when they represent two thousand times the number of adults in the wild. Imagine trying to produce six million condor eggs," commented Lafferty after the spawning (Maender).

The larvae were separated among Tom McCormick and Neal Hooker to decrease chance of accidental disturbance. Hooker observed the free swimming larvae for seven days before adding the chemical GABA to induce the larvae to loose their cilia and settle on the bottom of the tank. Once settled, they began growing the beginnings of a shell and lost their mobility (Hooker). The larvae were then delivered to CIMRI where "the baby abalone will dine on a thin film of algae and grow in tanks, protected from predators," said McCormick. " As the young abalone grow larger they will be weaned onto kelp, which is the mainstay of their diet (Maender)."

Today there are about 500,000 juveniles in the McCormick's tanks measuring approximately half an inch (Lafferty). The highest mortality rate is in the first six months, before they reach a half inch (Hooker), so there are high hopes for these juvenile survivors. They will take four years to reach adulthood, when they will measure about four inches in diameter and be large enough to defend themselves against predators. At that time they will be placed in breeding colonies deeper than one hundred feet, in order to prevent poaching (Maender). The team hopes to release at least 10,000 adults into the wild per year, but this may not be possible for many years. The Department of Fish and Game will not allow the abalone to be released without sufficient genetic diversity. The current juveniles all share the same father and have one of two mothers, therefore they will not be allowed to breed with each other (Lafferty). The team needs around two hundred abalone to have a large enough gene pool to avoid inbreeding; currently they have fifteen. To collect this amount of specimens from the wild is estimated to cost upward of 1.2 million dollars (Maender). Another obstacle the team must face is government regulations. Since they have been added to the endangered species list, only fish and game can collect the abalone, not the consortium (Lafferty). "It instantly makes it more difficult to do research," said Lafferty. "It's an additional layer of protection, but ironically it makes it harder for us to work with them to help them recover (Science File)."

Many people in America hear about the plight of the white abalone and thousands of other species and say "Who cares? This is just survival of the fittest," but what is mankind going to eat when every plant and animal on earth is wiped out because of our "get it while you can" mentality? Even if we don't consume all living organisms or physically destroy their habitat, they will be indirectly effected by mankind through disruption of food chains or pollution. While it is a great and noble accomplishment to try to bring a species back from near-extinction, mankind needs to realize that simply fixing what has been done will not solve all problems. We need to stop short-sighted, careless practices like over fishing, destruction of habitat and pollution from occurring in order for us to continue as a species on a sustainable planet. We are altering the balance of nature by biting of more than we can chew and the only way to get through that barrier is through the realization mankind is part of nature and what we do to nature we also do to ourselves. Scientists like those in the Abalone Restoration Consortium are great examples of the power that the human race has to better understand, appreciate and improve the world all around us. They are taking the first steps toward restoring nature's disrupted system back to balance.

List of Works Cited

Dye, Lee. "Saving a Tasty Abalone."  ABCnews.com 3 Mar. 1999. 7 Jan. 2002. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/science/Dyehard/dye991029.html

Cummings, Brendan. "White Abalone Listed as Endangered Species." Center for Biological Diversity. 29 May 2001. 6 Jan. 2000 http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/abalone.html

Hooker, Neal. Personal Interview. 8 Jan. 2002

Lafferty, Kevin. Personal Interview. 8 Jan. 2002

Maender, Gloria. "Team Spawns Rare White Abalone: It's a Boy! It's a Girl! It's Six Million Baby Mollusks!" United States Geological Survey Online. 30 Apr. 2001. 7 Jan. 2002 http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1443m.html

Science File. "Abalone Amore." 1 Oct. 2001. 7 Jan. 2002. http://www.Lagunablanca.org/faculty/bio/channel/News/Endangered/abalone_oct_1.html