Abalone restoration and conservation efforts

While WDFW continues to monitor abalone abundance, a suite of efforts are underway to support and to bolster the natural populations. Much of this work relies on animals raised in hatcheries, and thus we must go to extra lengths to make sure that any environmental impacts of such actions are well understood. Furthermore, before outplanting animals, we need to better understand the declines of wild abalone so that our efforts will not be futile in the long term. Recent and on-going efforts include:

• September 2009: Nearly 1,000 abalone were outplanted in a one year study to examine the relative survival of hatchery animals that were raised via different methods prior to their outplant.
• August 2009: Puget Sound Restoration Fund, Shannon Point Marine Center, UW and WDFW just ouptlanted more than a thousand abalone as part of the first enhancement of wild abalone populations in Washington State!
• WDFW and the University of Washington (UW) recently completed a 2 year study during which time recruitment modules were experimentally placed throughout the San Juan Archipelago to assess recruitment of juvenile abalone.
  
• Scientists at the UW conducted controlled experiments to determine the effects of environmental changes (e.g. temperature & salinity) on early life history stages of abalone.
  
• A pilot study outplanted juvenile abalone of different sizes into controlled and varied habitats in the Puget Sound. After one year, survivors were retrieved and scientists were able to assess which sizes of abalone and in which habitats, survived best. This helps to determine how large-scale outplants should be conducted in the future.
  
• Careful genetic analyses are conducted in all laboratory spawning events in order to maintain adequate genetic diversity among the families of abalone in the hatcheries. This helps to prevent health problems that could occur from too many siblings being outplanted in one area.
  
• The Russell Family Foundation funded an expansion of the hatchery facilities for abalone rearing, creating a second facility for spawning and raising future outplants. Construction of this facility was completed during summer 2008 and abalone are currently being reared in this new Port Gamble facility.
• A pilot study of larval survival is being conducted during Fall 2008. After one year, these sites will be surveyed in order to assess survival. This experiment will demonstrate whether outplants can be conducted with larval abalone or whether they need to first be reared in hatcheries for several years.