parts Dr. Fabiola Lafarga de la Cruz, researcher at the Aquaculture Department of CICESE. (Cicese)
The defense and conservation of nature inspired photographer Michael Ready to join forces to map, document and give us a multimedia project that compiles experiences and efforts for the conservation and rescue of black abalone (Haliotis cracherodii) in the intertidal desert of southern California and in the northern and central part of the Baja California peninsula.
Haliotis: stories of connection with an endangered species (Haliotis. Stories of Connection to a Species in Peril) is a storytelling project to educate and inspire action. It contains spectacular images that, combined with a narrative that engages the reader with the information it provides in simple language, shows the splendor of this endangered mollusk and documents the efforts being made to save it from extinction. Among others, those of CICESE under the leadership of Dr. Fabiola Lafarga de la Cruz.
An ancient resource
The black abalone is a marine snail that lives in the rocky intertidal margins along the coast of California and Baja California and nearby islands. Its fossil record dates back to the Pliocene (between 2.6 – 5.3 million years); It is a key species and vital for ecosystem balance.
Historically, this marine mollusk occupied an extensive range along the eastern Pacific coast and played an important role in the indigenous cultures of the area. However, over the past 50 years, overexploitation, pollution, climate change and disease have dramatically reduced the distribution and population of this intertidal organism.
Happy to be part of the “Haliotis” mapping, Dr. Fabiola Lafarga de la Cruz, researcher at the CICESE Aquaculture Department, points out that they are developing two projects related to black abalone.
One, with the objective of knowing the genetic variability of the remaining populations of the species in its biogeographic range in Mexico, taking a locality in California as a comparison sample; This project is carried out in collaboration with Dr. John Hyde of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and for which several intertidal Baja Californians were visited and samples were taken non-invasive tissue.
The second project aims to establish protocols for their maintenance and conditioning in captivity, with the aim of being able to produce black abalone hatchlings and help their recovery, in low density areas and where the species has disappeared.
“We are the only two – NOAA, in San Diego, and CICESE, in Ensenada – that are working on the captive breeding program.” Teams led by Fabiola Lafarga and John Hyde are working to understand and subsequently replicate the particular conditions of black abalone and their ability to generate reproductive material.
The CICESE team, continues Fabiola Lafarga, collected black abalones from different places on the peninsula, to bring them to Ensenada, keep them in captivity and try to reproduce them. We still have some organisms in captivity and we are trying to induce them to spawn, but there is not much information and it is very difficult to create optimal conditions to maintain this species; we have not yet been successful in inducing them to spawn.
This research center, adds Dr. Lafarga, has also worked with two cooperatives. “We have black abalones in mariculture on San Jerónimo Island and in cages in Puerto Canoas. Next year we want to promote a project to be able to go to the localities, remove the abalones, reproduce them and return them to their environment, to only bring the fertilized eggs to the laboratory that will continue their larval cultivation under controlled conditions.”
When the creators of “Haliotis: stories of connection with an endangered species” learned about the projects developed at CICESE, they came to Ensenada to document the efforts in northwest Mexico and add them to the map of stories that are connected by the same objective. : the rescue of a species.
“We participate in this project because in Mexico we are the only ones who are trying to reproduce the black abalone, to be able to generate offspring and restore ecosystems where population densities are very low, which could be possible but in long periods of time, 50 or 60 years, and as long as the human does not continue the illegal exploitation.”
This resource is intertidal; Every time the tide goes out, humans have access to it. For this reason, the black abalone has been among the most impacted, unlike the Chinese abalone and other species that are at depth and you have to dive to get them out.
The creatives behind “Haliotis: Stories of Connection with an Endangered Species” are photographer Michael J. Ready, science writer Alex Warneke, and editor Dr. Keith Lombardo. Hosted by the International League of Conservation Photographers, the multimedia product was produced by the Southern California Research Learning Center.
These connection stories are hosted on:
