Puget Sound Restoration Fund

The summer of 2009 saw a flurry of abalone activity and the outplant of nearly 2,000 abalone onto Puget Sound reefs. In Washington State’s first restoration outplant of abalone, 1,100 animals were released near Anacortes, Washington. In a successive and complementary effort that will help researchers to better understand different captive rearing methodologies for abalone, the abalone recovery team outplanted nearly 1,000 animals near Port Angeles. Both of these projects will supplement recent advances in our understanding of abalone restoration strategies and will bring us closer to combating continued declines of this iconic, native northwest species.

Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) is actively working with a suite of local partners to expand on-the-ground recovery of pinto, or northern, abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) populations in Washington State. By combining recent funding from The Russell Family Foundation with our own investment of private funds, PSRF is supporting hatchery-based abalone rearing and outplant. In addition to our contributions to the scientific components of the restoration, we are working to build broader public awareness and to foster community support for abalone recovery in the future.

Pinto Abalone Recovery
The 25-minute film on the left showcases different aspects of recovering abalone populations in Washington State from spawning adult brood animals, to tending juveniles during months of grow-out, to careful reintroduction into the wild. It's a big undertaking involving conservation genetics, state-of-the-art hatchery rearing techniques and lots of collaboration between scientists, resource managers, Tribes and community groups.

Produced by Shelly Solomon of Leaping Frog Films (www.leapingfrogfilms.com)

Pinto abalone (also known as northern abalone) populations along the west coast of the United States and Canada have experienced dramatic declines in the last few decades. Commercial and recreational fishing for pinto abalone is prohibited throughout their natural range (with the exception of Alaska, which still allows a recreational, free-diving fishery), but fishery closures alone will be unable to prevent the extinction of the majority of these populations. Since 1992, abalone abundance at survey sites in Washington State has declined by more than 80%, despite the prohibition of abalone fishing since 1994. To complement on-going survey efforts by Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), PSRF has joined forces with the University of Washington (UW), WDFW, Taylor Shellfish, Baywater, Inc., NOAA, Shannon Point Marine Center/ Western Washington University and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe to form an abalone recovery team to actively restore pinto abalone populations.

With assistance from Canada’s Dept. of Fish and Oceans, WDFW and the UW have been working for several years to optimize captive spawning and rearing methodologies for pinto abalone and they have made giant strides forward. In 2007, the WDFW/UW team conducted a pilot outplant of hatchery-raised juveniles as a crucial first step towards larger-scale recovery efforts. A subsequent second step was the experimental planting of hatchery-spawned abalone larvae onto reefs during the Fall of 2008.

To facilitate successive outplants of abalone throughout Puget Sound, the team from PSRF, Baywater, Inc., UW, Taylor Shellfish, WDFW and The Russell Family Foundation scaled-up capacity by constructing a second hatchery facility in 2008. This new facility, located in Port Gamble, WA, has allowed scientists to cultivate the requisite number of individuals and the genetic diversity that are needed to maintain healthy populations into the future. Furthermore, this facility will eventually provide the public with the opportunity to observe, first-hand, a rare and cryptic species, as well as the efforts that are underway to preserve it.

You can see abalone LIVE at the Seattle Aquarium and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. You can also learn more about abalone and see photos of our on-going work at www.pintoabalone.org. Download additional pinto abalone materials at the bottom of the page.

Look for our public awareness posters at your local dive shop or on the Washington State Ferries and please contact us if you would like to learn more about our efforts. We are also available to speak to your class, club or other organization about pinto abalone and their recovery and conservation. You can contact us through this website or by clicking here.

Canadian abalone populations are similarly threatened and are listed as federally endangered. To learn more about our northern neighbors’ efforts to combat abalone declines, visit the Department of Fish and Oceans website.

Funding for outplant activities from PSRF, The Russell Family Foundation, WDFW, UW and Shell Puget Sound Refinery.

To combat population declines, hatchery-based efforts are underway to restore pinto abalone populations in Puget Sound. (photo courtesy Josh Bouma)
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