Pintos in the Salish Sea

by Gail Wellenstein, Kitsap Beach Naturalist

A six-inch-long marine snail glides along on its muscular foot through the kelp bed, protected by a multicolored, irregularly lumpy oval shell with six raised pores on one side. Two head tentacles protrude from under the front edge of the shell, sensing food and predators, and a ruffle of small tentacles nestles under the rest of the shell, enabling the pinto abalone to pick up chemical clues to its environment as well as the direction of water flow. The pinto abalone is seeking its favorite foods, red seaweed and kelp. It is the only abalone that lives along the cold rocky shoreline of the Pacific Northwest.

Photo Caption: Pinto Abalone at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Photo Credit: Gail Wellenstein

The inside of the shell is pearlescent, a stark contrast to the outside, and the flesh is tasty, a bad combo if you want to survive in relatively shallow water along shorelines populated by people, sea otters, sea stars, and the giant pacific octopus. For centuries, there was a sustainable harvest by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific northwest. The pearlescent shell was highly prized as a sacred object, and was used in trade, ceremonies, decorative inlay, and jewelry. Life for the pinto changed drastically when they were classified as a shellfish for the purpose of recreational fishing. Goodbye sustainable harvest.

Washington state never had a commercial abalone fishery, but it did open a recreational harvest in 1959. By the mid 1980’s, recreational divers were harvesting up to 40,000 per year, with additional numbers taken by poachers. The abalone population crashed as a result and the state began a survey in 1992, which led to a closure of recreational fishing in 1994. Sadly, the population continued to decline after the closure. Sea otters, octopus, and sea stars were still dining on them, but this alone could not account for the severity of the continued decline. By 2012, surveys found only 12 wild pinto abalone in our state. Why did the population not recover?

Pinto abalone are slow-growing with a lifespan of at least 15-20 years, so one would think that with time more juveniles would show up. They reproduce by broadcast spawning, meaning that they release thousands of eggs or sperm directly into the water, like coral. Then an egg and sperm bump into each other in the water and voila, fertilization, and eventually new abalone. However, this method requires that there is a member of the opposite sex nearby, ready and able to release its reproductive cells. If too few abalone are left in the area, their eggs and sperm may just drift in the water without meeting their mates. This is exactly what happened. By the time the harvest was closed, there were too few abalone left and they were too far apart. They are now what wildlife scientists call “functionally extinct” in our area, meaning that though there are survivors, they cannot maintain their population by reproduction. Can they be saved?

Recovery efforts began in 2002 with a joint effort by UW and Washington Fish and Wildlife. Many organizations joined in the effort over time, including private, non-profit, tribal and academic partners. They developed a captive breeding program, and by 2009 they were able to plant marked juveniles in rocky reef habitats in the Salish Sea. These juveniles are the size of a dime and are marked with colored tags to show that they are hatchery abalone. Over 78,000 pinto abalone have been planted in Washington waters and surveys show a slow recovery of the population. One additional protection for abalone was added in 2019 when they were listed as an endangered species in Washington State. The goal of recovery efforts is to return the pinto abalone to a self-sustaining population level. For more information checkout the Puget Sound Restoration Fund at restorationfund.org/programs/pintoabalone/.