Which SoCal sea creatures are struggling? Check their grades

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach released its first-ever report card this week detailing the health of 30 species of SoCal marine life. The vibe is more elementary school progress report than college-dooming letter grades — green sea turtles and giant sea bass are making satisfactory progress. White abalone and ochre sea stars need improvement.

Overall, 18 species had populations that were either rising — including the giant sea bass, green sea turtle, and southern sea otter — or were stable with fluctuations — including the western snowy plover, California brown pelican, and Eastern North Pacific gray whale.

Species on the decline — 12 of them — include the harbor seal and several species of sea stars and abalone.

You can peruse the whole report card here.

Abalone at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Two iconic SoCal critters: one success, one struggle

Giant sea bass, which live about as long as humans, were nearly fished to extinction decades ago. But the species has been on a slow but steady path to recovery, thanks to regulations protecting the giants from fishing and recovery programs. Fun fact: The Aquarium of the Pacific was the first aquarium to successfully breed and raise the fish in captivity and release them into the wild.

White abalone, with its pearly shell, was once an important food for native people in coastal California. But in the first half of the 1900s, white abalone and other abalone species were decimated by overharvesting. Not-so-fun fact: White abalone was the first invertebrate listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, in 2001.

The Aquarium of the Pacific has been breeding abalone for several decades. Since 2019, they’ve released 16,000 of the critters back into coastal waters, said Nate Jaros, vice president of animal care at the aquarium.

But it hasn’t been enough to bring the species back from the brink of extinction.

“ When you're releasing abalone, they kind of have to go through a gauntlet of predators — octopus, sheephead, lobsters are all abalone predators. So when you put small abalone out, they're vulnerable,” Jaros said.

The aquarium is now working with outside partners to scale up their white abalone breeding program. “We want to put enough out that they can fill the habitat and then start to reproduce,” he said.

Aquarium visitors learn about ochre sea stars and other species that live in the coastal waters of Southern California.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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What’s the point of the report card?

Even conservation biologists have a hard time measuring changes in biodiversity as a whole, said Aquarium CEO Peter Kareiva. The report card measures the status of key species that make up the marine ecosystem along the coast so that scientists and the public can go back — for example, after the recent devastating fires pouring toxic runoff into the ocean — and see how those species fared after the fire.

The report card also allows the aquarium to evaluate whether its recovery programs are working.

Kareiva also hopes the report card will help people understand the state of ocean biodiversity in a more concrete way.

“ If I told you there had been a 10% decline in California marine biodiversity, you would intellectually know that was bad, but I'm not sure you would get passionate about it,” Kareiva said. “But if I told you that all of the sea otters along California had disappeared, you'd be angry, you'd rally, you'd be passionate about it, and you'd feel a real sense of loss.”

How was the data collected?

Dozens of researchers, organizations, and government agencies contributed to the report card. The data is collected from field work, remote sensing and long-term monitoring programs — and the information about each species was peer reviewed by outside experts.

What can you do to help? 

The Aquarium of the Pacific has many volunteer programs and other ways to help SoCal sea life. Get started here.