Stories of Southern California Conservation

The Aquarium is proud to have been the first aquarium to successfully rear a giant sea bass from eggs collected in our Honda Blue Cavern. This special fish, named Yutaka, currently lives in our Casino Point exhibit in our Southern California Gallery. This monumental event triggered the first Giant Sea Bass Symposium, where we brought scientists together from very diverse organizations to share research and find new collaborations. One such collaboration led California State Universities Northridge and Long Beach to join forces with us and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium to spawn and release hundreds of giant sea bass for the first time ever in 2019 and 2020. These individuals were identified by their unique spot patterns, and some were outfitted with radio transmitters to study their movements and integration into the wild. The Aquarium also supports the community science program led by University of California, Santa Barbara, where recreational divers can report their photographs to help contribute valuable data on the movement and longevity of these massive fish.

In the summer of 2009, we partnered with the Los Cerritos Wetlands to restore about 72 acres of land around a tidal pool in Long Beach, which became known as Joy Zedler Marsh. This land, across the street from a power plant, is still used for oil production today.

The first task was to remove the road coverings made of asphalt or heavy crude oil. The removal was labor intensive and sometimes dangerous. When the roads were cleared, the focus turned to removing non-native plants such as black mustard and saving rare natives such as southern tarplant. We then prepared the soil for planting and introduced water to help the plants grow. Overseen by Principal Restoration Ecologist Eric Zahn, a crew erected a greenhouse to propagate the native plants used for planting. Zahn’s crew set up monthly sessions inviting neighborhood groups to come in to learn about wetland biology, plant native plants, and remove non-native invasive plants. These efforts continued throughout the years with Aquarium staff and supporters contributing countless hours of hard work. Among the many community volunteers, four Aquarium volunteers Bill Robinson, Dan Dabelstein, Tina Cox and I were awarded Super Volunteer status and presented personalized lounge chairs for our years of dedication. The restoration is ongoing due to non-native plants being blown in by the winds and bird droppings.

When I started my biology career 15 years ago, nothing sounded more thrilling than working with sharks, and today I am equally thrilled to be working with sunflower sea stars. In 2022, I’m part of a new Pycnopodia (sunflower star) Recovery Working Group with some of our partner organizations. They needed aquariums and laboratories who could help “write the book” on spawning and raising sunflower stars. As the cold-water aquaculture aquarist at the Aquarium, that responsibility fell into my lap. At first it felt alien. I’ve worked my way into aquaculture over the years and have come to love it, but I had been focusing on fish up to that point.

Now, if I wanted to participate in this initiative, I needed to learn all there is to know about culturing sea stars and sea urchins. It’s a year later now, and I never anticipated how much I would fall in love with the world of invertebrate culturing. It’s been a year filled with discoveries, frustrations, a lot of victories, and more meetings than I could ever imagine. Conservation projects are slow-moving, and roadblocks to the end goal are essentially guaranteed. But despite that, my passion for invertebrates has only grown as I’ve explored the weird, wild world of sea stars.

It’s still a long road ahead for the sunflower star (and all their supporters), but every day brings more knowledge and more passion into my life here at the Aquarium. I’m excited to see where the project will be this time next year and am constantly reminded how fortunate I am to work in a field where husbandry, research, and conservation combine to accomplish big things.

The bull kelp gametophyte project is exciting to work on because it’s truly amazing how complex and interesting these seemingly simple organisms are. Unlike true plants, kelp have an unusual life cycle that includes microscopic male and female individuals that breed to form the giant kelps that make up kelp forests. It’s mind boggling to peer into the microscope and see small groups of cells, then fertilized eggs that develop into little blades of kelp. What starts as a slow process accelerates quickly.

Day-to-day, I cannot discern much change in the gametophytes, but once they develop and start to grow into kelp, things really take off. Tiny leaves start to form and each day they double in size. That might not seem like much growth when its two millimeters one day and for the next, but seeing something go from one inch to two inches, then four inches over the course of two days is shocking! Knowing that a microscopic egg in a petri dish will grow into a 30- to 60-foot tall kelp is mind boggling. Small things can make a giant impact.

The best part of my job is learning new things about my favorite subject, seeing the science happen in front of me, and having the opportunity to make a positive impact. The bull kelp gametophytes I’m working with today could be instrumental in restoring bull kelp forests in the future.

When I was growing up, I always knew that I wanted to work with animals, but I never imagined I would fall in love with an endangered marine snail. It turns out that working with the endangered white abalone is one of the most fulfilling experiences I have had in my career as an aquarist thus far. It feels amazing to know that you are saving a species from extinction and working to restore their numbers in the wild. When we raise abalone at the Aquarium, the first week of their lives is so exciting. It takes about a week for the microscopic free-swimming larvae to settle as tiny abalone. Each day I look at the larvae under a microscope to track their development, and each day they look different! By the second day they are already developing their shells and by day five their eyes start to develop. By the end of their first week of life the larvae start to test out their muscular foot and transition from free swimming larvae to benthic mini abalone. Once we move the baby abalone into our settling trough, it takes about three months to be able to see them with the naked eye. This period can be filled with some anxiety, but it is mainly feelings of excitement and hope for this iconic California species. It will be about two to three years before they are large enough to be released in the wild. It is a labor of love to raise these amazing snails from microscopic larvae to inch-long juveniles returning to the ocean.

Walking into the mountain yellow-legged frog room is like stepping into a different universe than the rest of the bustling Aquarium. It’s quiet, it’s cold, and it’s just me and the frogs. Sometimes, when the air is still, just over the rumbling of the pumps, I can hear the frogs vocalizing: a low, comforting sound, reminiscent of a door creaking. Frogs, like the mountain yellow-legged frog, play a vital role in any ecosystem. The mountain yellow-legged frog program has been the defining project of my career. It challenges my ability to provide excellent husbandry for these sensitive animals. I feel extreme highs: Releasing 188 mountain yellow-legged frogs in conjunction with United States Geological Survey (USGS). It was exhilarating last September knowing that in that moment, we have effectively doubled the wild population of these animals. Despite knowing that the genetic bottleneck and the stress of metamorphosis makes some degree of loss unavoidable, we persevere, much like the amphibians. Every day, I revel in the hum of the pumps, the cool of the room, and when I’m lucky, the soft croaks of the frogs. And when I revel, I remember why we do what we do: because we owe it to the frogs.

Growing up in Southern California, I frequently visited the Aquarium, whether it was for school field trips, family outings, or just because. Each time I visited, I learned more and more about the ocean, its inhabitants, and conservation efforts to help protect these amazing animals.

I would watch the dive shows every time I visited wondering just how I could be that diver and make a difference. Years later, I found myself working at a dive shop in Monterey, California, teaching SCUBA and giving guided tours to guests from all over the world. Having completed my American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) scientific diver course in college, I would often fuse my passion for marine research and conservation with my work as a SCUBA instructor.

Now, as the new dive safety officer of field operations for the Aquarium, I hope to continue sharing my knowledge and skills teaching new scientific divers, assisting with collections, and increase our opportunities and involvement with ongoing research and conservation projects. It’s my belief that aquariums are a gateway to teach our communities about marine life and our oceans and what we can do to protect and conserve them for future generations, just as it inspired me all those years ago.