Lonely Abalone Seeks Life Partner

Young Abalone
Photo by Wendy Feltham

When you walk into the Marine Exhibit, it is like entering a different world. I have always been fascinated with the sea and all it has to offer. Growing up on the coast of Maine I spent my summers exploring every tide pool I could find. I have carried this fascination throughout my life. The Marine Exhibit allows you to peek into the tide pool and underwater environment. It gives me the same excitement I found in those childhood summers. Next to the Marine Exhibit is the classroom, a space many students have sat waiting and wiggling, before entering this different realm. One day last week, I opened the door and let the students enter this magical land. Their faces lit up with such energy and huge smiles. I told my coworker that I felt like Willie Wonka opening the doors to the chocolate factory. This fascination is something that many people have when it comes to the marine world. All of the creatures and plant life are full of stories, facts, and memories for the staff, volunteers, and visitors in the Marine Exhibit. One invertebrate, in particular, holds a special place in the hearts of many at the Marine Science Center.

The Pinto, or Northern, Abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) is one of my favorite creatures in the Marine Exhibit here at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. The pinto abalone are marine snails found from Sitka, Alaska to Point Conception, California.  They are often referred to as, “the lonely abalone”. This name comes from the fact that their population is too small and spread out to reproduce successfully. Abalone use a reproductive strategy known as broadcast spawning that involves the male and female counterparts releasing eggs and sperm into the water. Abalone broadcast spawn between April and June. If successful reproduction occurs, the abalone will remain in a planktonic phase, floating in the ocean for 10-14 days before settling onto a rocky ocean floor.

As herbivores, pinto abalone scrape algae off rocks with their file-like tongue, known as a radula. As they grow larger they began to eat brown and red kelp;  whichever one they consume more of is reflected in the color of their shell.  Abalone have a number of predators, including sunflower stars, sea otters, some species of fish, and humans. To defend themselves, they use their muscular foot to stick to rocks and their shell as a shield. Abalone spend most of their time hidden among rocks.  As they grow, their shells become covered in a plethora of life, including algae and sponges, which makes for good camouflage. Since the 1990s, pinto abalone populations have declined more than 90% and they  have been a species of concern since 2004. The abalone population is in such great decline due to overharvesting. Although their foot is a delicacy , abalone fishing in Washington was outlawed in 1994. A great effort has been put into the restoration of pinto abalone in the Salish Sea.

In 2013, The Port Townsend Marine Science Center partnered with the Puget Sound Restoration Fund to help raise pinto abalone. We were  given 200 baby abalone,  no bigger than your thumbnail. One hundred of them were raised in a tank and the other half were raised in a structure resembling  a beehive that was submerged in water off of the dock.  Staff and volunteers took very special care of these young gastropods by feeding them three times a week and weighing and measuring them once a month.

Tagging the small abalone
Photo by Wendy Feltham

“The latter tasks weren’t always easy”, recalls volunteer and Board Member Wendy Feltham. The abalone would often stick to the surface they were being measured on and the only way to get them to move was by placing one of their predators close by. The sunflower star has a voracious appetite for pinto abalone. If you put a sunflower star in close proximity to the abalone they will let go of the surface they’re on. To help record data, some of the abalone were tagged.  The device used to tag them is the same one used to tag bees.

PTMSC volunteers Katherine Jensen and Sue Long with young abalone
Photo by Wendy Feltham

The Port Townsend Marine Science Center was able to keep twenty of these abalone for the Marine Exhibit. The other 180  were returned to the Puget Sound Restoration Fund facility. They were kept in tanks on site and eventually  returned to the Salish Sea. The Pinto Abalone is a unique creature, one that I was drawn to right away here at the Marine Science Center. They get so excited to eat with their tentacles waving in search of their green kelp goodies. Learning the story of the time spent to raise these invertebrates is one of the many ways the Port Townsend Marine Science continues to wow me. The work the Puget Sound Restoration Fund is doing to restore the pinto abalones’ populations is truly inspirational.

“It is still possible for us to keep an iconic and treasured species from blinking out—on our watch. Our goal at PSRF: to rebuild sustainable populations of the Salish Sea’s only native abalone—the mighty Haliotis kamtschatkana—so that, once again, pinto abalone can graze our subtidal waters and successfully reproduce in the wild.” -Puget Sound Restoration Fund. http://www.restorationfund.org/projects/pintoabalone

A present day abalone feeding
Photoby Brooke Askey

The pinto abalone are just one of the many amazing and fascinating creatures to be found in the Marine Exhibit. I look forward to continuing to be wowed  by the marine life which surrounds me here in the Salish Sea. I, too, feel like a kid in the chocolate factory when I enter the Marine Exhibit, both surprised and in awe of the fascinating underwater world.

Please consider making a gift today to support kids education, animals, and a healthy Salish Sea: ptmsc.org/get-involved/donate

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Sarah Croston is the Natural History and Volunteer Educator and an AmeriCorps member serving at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

This Whale Sculpture Was Modeled After a Beached Orca

CANADIAN ARTIST KEN HALL BUILT LEGACY BASED ON 3D SCANS OF THE SKELETON OF HOPE, AN ORCA THAT DIED ON THE COAST OF WASHINGTON IN 2002

Originally published on http://www.smithsonianmag.com/

By Emily Frost

smithsonian.com 
November 18, 2016

When Ken Hall first knocked on his neighbors’ door, it wasn’t to borrow a cup of sugar or an egg. He came to ask for the remains of their rotting decks—he needed cedar wood and lots of it. 

They asked, “What’s it for?” Quite unexpectedly, he said, “I’m going to build a whale!”

Hall found himself in the midst of this story because of a shift in direction. After 15 years of building 3D worlds for computer games, he wanted to build something that could be touched and seen without a screen. But what?

LEGACY IS SCHEDULED TO BE ON DISPLAY AT THE ONTARIO SCIENCE CENTRE BEGINNING IN 2017 BEFORE EMBARKING ON AN INTERNATIONAL TOUR. (KEN HALL)

 

 

The Canadian artist knew he was going to create something big. Hall was drawn to large animals, especially those that had community and social structures, similar to what we know as humans. Hall found a story that caught his attention—it was the story of Hope, an orca that beached and died on the coast of Washington State in 2002. A necropsy found that the female animal contained the highest level of contaminants ever recorded in an orca, along with signs of significant bone loss and a bacterial infection. The Port Townsend Marine Science Center (PTMSC) led the effort behind the removal of Hope from the shore, and subsequent necropsy.

In 2011, the Idaho Virtualization Laboratory created a 3D scan of the skeleton, before it was put on display at PTMSC. Hall began to build prototype pieces based on the 3D data. He chose wood, and specifically cedar, as his medium. The cedar, Hall says, is an “homage to totem carving, and its role in passing knowledge to future generations,” honoring the traditional use of cedar by First Nations for totem poles in the Pacific Northwest. For it to go on display at various museums, the piece—which he named Legacy—would have to be made travel-ready, meaning it could be put up and taken down in a relatively short period of time, and displayed in a variety of ways based on the available space. Hall’s background in mechanical engineering came in handy at this point—“It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle” he says.

Once 11 of the 46 vertebrae were carved, Hall realized just how big of a project this would be—it took him six months of full-time fabrication to make all the pieces (there are over 200 bones that make up the sculpture). The sculpture was completed and put on display at the Dufferin County Museum & Archives in Ontario. Sometimes accompanied by projection lights that provide a water-like effect and orca vocalizations playing in the background, the finished piece gives visitors a feeling of being underwater.

That feeling is what Hall wanted to provide people walking through the exhibit—one that highlights our connections as humans to the Earth and our ecosystems, like Hope and her community in the Pacific.

In the case of Hope, a transient (also called Bigg’s killer whale), researchers weren’t able to point to one specific cause of death; however, contamination is certainly an issue for all orcas in the region. There are three distinct orca ecotypes, or populations, documented off the U.S. North Pacific coast—transient, resident and offshore. All three overlap in parts of their home range but have distinctive physical traits, behaviors and even genes. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the sub-population of Southern Resident killer whales are “among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world” and listed as endangered—only 78 individuals were counted in the population in 2014.

Contamination comes from a variety of sources ranging from legacy chemicals that are no longer used but persist in the environment (like DDT and PCBs), to chemicals that make up flame-retardants, found in things like carpets and furniture. Southern Resident Killer Whales are one of eight “highly at-risk species” that NOAA is drawing attention to in its “Species in the Spotlight” series. Lynn Barre, who leads the Seattle branch of NOAA’s Office of Protected Resources, is encouraged to hear about the art piece—“Even [orca] bones or skeleton as an art piece can inspire people to be [environmental] stewards.”

After its inaugural showing, Legacy has moved to other venues in Ontario and is scheduled to be on display at the Ontario Science Centre beginning in 2017 before embarking on an international tour. Over two million visitors have experienced Legacy to date.

“Legacy is a stunning example of how science and nature can influence art and how art can expand the appreciation of science,” said Mary Jane Conboy the director of science content and design at the Ontario Science Centre. “As Canada celebrates its 150 years in 2017, displaying Legacy at the Ontario Science Centre is particularly timely. This visually compelling piece asks our visitors to reflect on our current environmental practices and the changes we want to inspire for the future.”

Hall hopes to some day take the immersive exhibit to another level by incorporating his gaming background into the onsite experience. 3D virtual reality could evolve the sculptural art piece into an interactive installation: panning over the skeleton would allow visitors to see what the full animal looked like, not just an articulated skeleton. Zooming into an area could answer questions, like “how do whales breathe,” “what are the impacts of underwater noise on whales,” and “what is it like to 'see' with sonar?”

Hall’s environmentally focused pieces tell a story. He wants visitors to gain a better understanding of how humans can live in harmony with nature. “I want to try to make thinking and understanding cool again,” he says, and he intends to keep his focus on our connection to the world around us in the hope that we all become more empathetically aware of our surroundings.

Port Townsend Marine Science Center Thanksgiving Weekend Cruise

Port Townsend, WA, November 26, 2016—The Port Townsend Marine Science Center is inviting participants to cruise with us to Protection Island aboard one of Puget Sound Express’ heated, fully enclosed whale-watching boats with 360-degree windows, wrap-around observation decks, and a cozy interior. The sail will take place on Saturday, November 26^th from 1-4 pm, leaving from the dock at the end of Water Street in Port Townsend and setting off on a 3-hour adventure.

Photo credit to Mike Reudink (elephant seals on the seashore)

Port Townsend Marine Science Center Naturalist, Roger Risley, will be onboard to assist in wildlife spotting and interpretation, accompanied by informative Port Townsend Marine Science Center hosts.

A staple of the science center’s seasonal offerings, the Thanksgiving weekend cruise is wildly popular among tourists and locals alike. Participants enjoy a leisurely tour of the wildlife sanctuary and the enlightening comments from the onboard naturalist. In addition to experiencing and learning about the local marine life, participants have also gotten to witness a variety of birds while taking the cruise including loon, grebe, cormorant, merganser, duck, scoter, phalarope, tern, and puffin, just to name a few.                            

PTMSC Executive Director Janine Boire is confident this year will be no different. 

“We have been partnering with Puget Sound Express for this special holiday birding adventure around Protection Island for years,” Boire said. “It’s such a unique, special way to connect people with the Salish Sea and celebrate the holiday seasons. The Thanksgiving weekend cruise, in the midst of the busy holiday season, makes it particularly popular for those with family or friends visiting looking for a festive and warm way to get out on the water.”

The Thanksgiving weekend cruise departs at 1 pm on November 26 from the dock opposite the Puget Sound Express offices at the east end of Water Street in Port Townsend and returns to the dock at 4 pm. Tickets for the Protection Island Thanksgiving weekend Cruise are $80 per person or $60 for members of PTMSC, Audubon, Burke Museum, or Washington Ornithological Society.

For more information on the Thanksgiving Weekend Cruise, or to reserve your spot, visit http://www.pugetsoundexpress.com/whale-watching-and-wildlife-tours/bird-migration-cruise/ or call (360) 385-5288.