\n<\/p>\n
On a sunny January afternoon in Bodega Bay, some 70 miles north of San Francisco, the White Abalone Culture Lab is humming with activity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s spawning day. Alyssa Frederick, the lab\u2019s program director, invites me into an industrial room full of troughs and tubs of bubbling seawater. The abalone program is tucked away in the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, a research facility devoted to studying ocean and coastal health. The goal is to bring the endangered sea snails, known for their iridescent shells and delicate meat, back from the brink.<\/p>\n
Inside, a mix of volunteers and biologists stand in the aisle holding the abalone, some as big as coconuts. They\u2019re measuring, weighing, and performing health diagnostics. If the animals are deemed robust enough, they\u2019ll be moved into buckets filled with a \u201clove potion\u201d of hydrogen peroxide, which stimulates the females to expel eggs and the males to release sperm.<\/p>\n
The researchers here hope that the 110 white abalone on the premises will successfully produce offspring. They\u2019ll then nurse the marine mollusks until they\u2019re big enough to be released into their native waters along the southern California coast.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s part of a 25 year effort to repair the damage from overfishing and other factors to the species. In 2001, the year the first artificial spawning program took place, only 1% percent remained \u2013 about 2,000 individuals.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Alyssa Frederick, director of the white abalone captive breeding program at the Bodega Bay lab, inspects a nearly one-year-old abalone .<\/span><\/span>The white abalone lab is small but bursting with life. This single room holds abalone ranging from newborn to an estimated 25 years old. The team prepares to clean one of the tanks that houses abalone nearly a year old.<\/span><\/p>\n If left alone in the wild, they were doomed to go extinct within a decade. The white abalone became the first marine invertebrate to be listed as an endangered species and a program was established to restore their numbers. Since the Bodega Bay lab opened in 2011, scientists have released over 20,000 animals into the ocean \u2013 a ten-fold increase.<\/p>\n Today, the atmosphere in the lab is almost jolly. Everyone is grinning and laughing. After all, this is what scientists who help endangered animals strive for: the chance to see the struggling species reproduce.<\/p>\n Frederick hopes that by the end of the day, millions of larvae will fill the troughs. But successful spawning depends on factors outside of human control.<\/p>\n In case it might help, the researchers set the mood. They turn off all the lights except for the red bulbs suspended above the buckets. Sometimes they even play romantic music for the abalone. A little Marvin Gaye might just tip the vibe in the right direction.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s totally unscientific, but it makes us feel like we\u2019re doing something,\u201d laughs Frederick. \u201cI haven\u2019t found any evidence that music helps abalone reproduce. It doesn\u2019t seem to hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Once a year, the lab measures, weighs and checks the genders of the abalone. The assessments help the lab keep accurate data on the animals in their care. This abalone is 10 years old.<\/span>Two people lean over a long, empty tank<\/span>Left: The team prepares to clean one of the tanks that houses abalone nearly a year old. Right: During the cleaning, the team will count how many abalone are in the tank.<\/span><\/p>\n This spawning day feels significant because it almost didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Last April, Donald Trump proposed $1.7bn in cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which protects and restores more than 160 endangered marine species, as part of an effort weaken protections for vulnerable wildlife and open critical habitat to commercial interests like oil drilling, logging, and fishing.<\/p>\n The white abalone program was caught up in these changes. The cuts included the three-year grant that funds the lab and the salaries of its five employees. Suddenly the laboratory was plunged into uncertainty. If the project was gutted, it would interrupt momentum that has been building for decades.<\/p>\n Luckily, anonymous donors soon provided a stopgap for the missing money. Then, a few months later, federal funding came through for 2026. As of writing, it\u2019s likely the lab will receive the remainder of the grant, meaning the program should have financial support for another two years.<\/p>\n <\/span>White abalone are a species of large sea snail, most commonly known for their beautiful shells. They have a tiny face that can be seen when they feel bold enough to reveal it.<\/span> Photograph: Christie Hemm Klok\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Still, Frederick was left questioning how to ensure the lab stays open in such a volatile political atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to save a species, you can no longer rely fully on federal funding,\u201d Frederick says. \u201cThat\u2019s just poor risk management.\u201d<\/p>\n Frederick holds up a white abalone for me to see. Its mauve shell is covered with ridges and bumps. Inside is the \u201cfoot\u201d, the yonic, beige muscle it uses to cling to rocks. I\u2019m a little disappointed. This creature looks more like a catcher\u2019s mitt than the charismatic sea snail I was anticipating.<\/p>\n Then, as I watch, the abalone begins to move. Slowly it lowers its foot, revealing the pearly interior of its shell. Two tentacles poke out and then the brown head appears. The snail is looking at me. I\u2019m delighted by this strange creature, at once alien and yet seemingly curious and shy. Frederick calls them \u201cderpy\u201d, and the word seems to fit.<\/p>\n Left: Someone looking under a microscope. Right: Dozens of individual abalone shells in plastic pouches.<\/span>Left: White abalone are microscopic until they\u2019re about three to four months old and can only be seen clearly through a microscope. Husbandry and data manager Nora Frank retrieves some to be looked at more closely. Right: In Alyssa Frederick\u2019s office are storage bins of white abalone shells.<\/span><\/span>The back tanks in the lab are where the older abalone live. Some have been with the lab since the program began in 2001 and were rescued from the ocean.<\/span><\/p>\n Six of California\u2019s abalone species \u2013 white, red, black, green, pink, and flat \u2013 are struggling. The black abalone is also now listed as an endangered species. A ban on harvesting red abalone was recently extended until 2036: currently, the only way to buy the gourmet delicacy is from a farm. The white abalone, meanwhile, cannot be fished or purchased.<\/p>\n At one time, the giant gastropod was so plentiful, they were stacked on top of each other along the coastline. Slow moving, easy to catch, and delicious, they have a long cultural history as a food in California. Many indigenous tribes harvested them and used their iridescent shells as jewelry, tools, or currency. In the early 20th century, writers like Jack London sang the Abalone Song while tenderizing the meat. \u201cOh, some folks boast of quail on toast \/ Because they think it\u2019s toney, \/ But I\u2019m content to owe my rent \/ And live on abalone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Kelp is the preferred food of white abalone and is grown in tanks outside the lab.<\/span><\/span>Isaac Trevi\u00f1o, the abalone health and culture lead at the Bodega Bay lab, adds nutrients to the algae cultures in the algae culture greenhouse.<\/span><\/p>\n By the 1970s, overfishing had depleted most populations of the sea snail. Attention shifted to the white abalone, which were found in high concentrations in deeper waters from Point Conception down to Punta Abreojos in Baja California. A feeding frenzy followed. Within a decade, people had harvested 280 tons of the species. A 1992-93 survey of the 15 historic sites revealed only three white abalone living where once there had been thousands.<\/p>\n Abalone reproduce by \u201cbroadcast spawning\u201d, which is when the males and females release their reproductive cells into the ocean. When these gametes meet, they create larvae, which swim around in the water column for a week or two before settling on rocks. Slowly, over its lifespan of 35-40 years, the microscopic sea snails can grow up to 10 inches wide.<\/p>\n In 2001, the remaining white abalone were too far apart to spawn on their own. The White Abalone Program started that year when 18 wild snails were brought into a southern California facility. While initial spawning worked, a fatal disease called withering syndrome swept through and killed the animals. In 2011, UC Davis opened the Bodega Bay lab, as the withering syndrome had yet to appear in Sonoma county waters.<\/p>\n <\/span>Alyssa Frederick inspects a young abalone that\u2019s nearly a year old.<\/span><\/p>\n The other concern for the species is habitat degradation through the loss of kelp forests \u2013 underwater jungles that sustain a variety of marine life, including abalone. In a 2021 study by UC Santa Cruz, satellite imagery revealed that 95% of kelp forests along the northern California coast has disappeared, likely due to warming waters and the invasion of purple sea urchins. At the same time, the sunflower sea star, the urchin\u2019s major predator, was dying out due to the sea star wasting disease. Without it, there was little to stop the urchins from mowing the kelp to the rocky sea floor, causing the abalone to starve.<\/p>\n The good news is that it\u2019s possible to repair some of the damage that has been done. In fact, chances are high that the white abalone can be saved. One spawning produced more than 12m fertilized eggs. Only a portion of that larvae will survive, but with luck, many will eventually be released into the wild.<\/p>\n If that continues for long enough, Frederick believes the white abalone can someday thrive again. And that, she explains, is why she\u2019s happy to make restoring the giant sea snail her life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just so hopeful,\u201d she says. \u201cSo many people studying the ocean or studying endangered species have a really hard job. They have to watch the ocean degrade or they\u2019re watching a species go extinct. In this situation, we get to actually restore the white abalone. It\u2019s kind of amazing. That never happens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a sunny January afternoon in Bodega Bay, some 70 miles north of San Francisco, the White Abalone Culture Lab is humming with activity. It\u2019s spawning day. Alyssa Frederick, the lab\u2019s program director, invites me into an industrial room full of troughs and tubs of bubbling seawater. The abalone program is tucked away in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[4907,6456,11112,1785,23647,8876,23646,464,4113,19784],"class_list":{"0":"post-46185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-brink","9":"tag-brought","10":"tag-lab","11":"tag-marine","12":"tag-mollusk","13":"tag-oceans","14":"tag-plucky","15":"tag-sea","16":"tag-sex","17":"tag-snail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Funding cuts<\/h2>\n
Struggling species<\/h2>\n