22 http://www.earthislandjournal.orgParnell says wistfully. “You have a trend where abalone
food supply is decreasing at the same time that they’ve been
hammered by warm water, associated diseases, and
overharvesting.”
I look from the empty pie boxes to Dayton and Parnell.
We sit quietly for a moment as the sea outside shifts in the
afternoon sun. Parnell leaves for a bit and comes back with a
handful of small shells, some numbered, others half-covered
in wax — remnants of a juvenile abalone recovery project.
This experiment, long abandoned, served as a predecessor
to what is quickly becoming one of the most important
components of abalone restoration today — outplanting.A
SMALL, SUN-WEATHERED building situated amidst the
ceaseless industrial stir of Terminal Island — a pri-
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Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach — seems like
a strange place to raise endangered marine invertebrates. Yet,that is exactly what Director of Marine Operations Heather
Burdick and her team at the Santa Monica Bay Foundation
have set out to do.
“We’ve been doing captive spawning here in our lab with
greens and reds, and now we’re starting to work with white
abalone,” Burdick announces from the parking lot, over a
thrum of shipping trucks and ocean freighters. She leads us
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water in trough-shaped tanks glints with UV-light from over-
head. Peering around, I see a handful of tiny pink and olive
shells clinging to the tank walls. These are critically endan-
gered baby white abalone, Burdick’s colleague, Armand
Barilotti, says.
These young mollusks are the result of a hydrogen peroxide
spawning method that has worked to induce in-house repro-
duction nearly a dozen times in the “Ab Lab.” Essentially, an
enzyme naturally activated by low levels of hydrogen perox-
ide causes the abalone to produce the reproductive hormoneOne of the abalone’s key ecological roles is placing a check on sea urchin populations. When left unchecked, urchins can overwhelm and strip
the seafloor and kelp forests clean, as is happening now in California’s coastal waters.
PHOTO^ MICHAEL^ ZEIGLER^ /ISTOCKPHOTO