Aviculture Curator Aimee Greenebaum worked with the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s African penguins for more than a decade before ever seeing one in the wild. She was in South Africa last fall to help rehabilitate sick and injured penguins and feed starving chicks. She’s quick to point out that it’s less glamorous than it sounds.
Aviculture Curator Aimee Greenebaum spent long days force-feeding fish to rescued penguins. Photo by Richard Kruger.
“They don’t smell good, I’m not gonna lie,” Aimee says with a laugh. But, she adds, “They’re pretty cool. They’re tough little birds.”
Aimee worked for several weeks with the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB)—the leading conservation organization working to recover this endangered species. African penguins, which stand around two feet tall, don’t hail from the land of snow. The weather at the southern tip of the continent is a lot like Monterey, Aimee says.
Up to 80 rescued penguins per pen awaited a meal from volunteers like Aviculture Curator Aimee Greenebaum. Photo by Richard Kruger
She spent hours each day hunched on a stool, in pens that held 70 or 80 rescued penguins, corralling one bird at a time between her knees. Many required force-feeding.
Decades of conservation work have brought southern sea otters back from near-extinction. This year, their numbers topped 3,000 for the first time since fur traders decimated the population in the 19th century. But as the animals move into new territory along the California Coast, they’re encountering another food source: endangered black abalone.
Fishing groups have worried that sea otters may keep abalone from rebounding—and dashing their chance of reopening a commercial abalone fishery in California. But last month, a paper published in the scientific journal Ecology found the recovery of sea otters doesn’t prevent the recovery of black abalone. In fact, the two species benefit one another.
It’s complicated
The paper, authored by University of California, Santa Cruz Professor Peter Raimondi with researchers from the University of California, Davis and the U.S. Geological Survey, investigated abalone populations in 12 places along the Central Coast—some with otters, some without.
If otters were harming abalone populations, the researchers reasoned, there would be fewer abalone where there were more otters. Instead, the data showed exactly the opposite pattern: Where there are more otters, there are more abalone.
The result may not be intuitive, but that reflects the complexity of ocean ecosystems. Raimondi and his colleagues aren’t quite sure why otters and abalone benefit one another, but they have some ideas.
First, both species thrive in the same habitat: rich kelp forests over rocky bottoms. And second, while abalone are food for sea otters, otters may also provide food for abalone. Sea urchins, a staple of the otter diet, can wipe out kelp forests, leaving very little food for other animals.
By keeping urchin populations in check, otters improve the health of kelp forests, indirectly giving abalone more to eat.
A holistic approach
A territorial male sea otter in Moss Landing uses his paws to forage for shore crabs in the pickleweed, leaving his eyes free to monitor his surroundings. Photo by Lilian Carswell/USFWS.
Scientists have long suspected healthy abalone and otter populations might benefit one other. In 2012, David Jessup, former director of the Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz, pointed out that otters and abalone coevolved as predator and prey over hundreds of thousands of years.
“It would be extremely disadvantageous to sea otter survival if they could drive abalone to rarity or extinction,” he wrote in a 2012 post on seaotters.com. “It would be a remarkable evolutionary failure.”
The population decline that prompted officials to list black and white abalone under the Endangered Species Act in 1997 had nothing to do with sea otters, Jessup added. At that time, there were still too few otters in the wild to affect the abundance of abalone. Instead, a combination of overfishing and a fatal disease called withering syndrome caused abalone numbers to plummet.
There’s been a long-term misunderstanding about abalone population levels, Carswell adds. In the early 20th century, she explains, California settlers found enormous piles of shellfish up and down the coast. They assumed this incredible abundance was the norm, and abalone fisheries sprang up to take advantage. But scientists now know the unusually high numbers of abalone and other shellfish were due to the absence of otters.
“The [abalone] baseline was already very skewed, totally out of whack, because otters had been removed,” Carswell says.
Andrew Johnson, the Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation manager, says people enjoyed the abalone harvest for decades in the absence of sea otters. “It was unregulated, they overexploited it, and they got their benefit from it,” he says. “But now things are coming into a better balance.”
A perfect pairing
In the long term, Raimondi’s paper suggests, both abalones and otters can thrive along the California coast.
Relationships between animals are complex, and ecosystem management works best when scientists and managers take multiple species into account. In contrast to the old idea that otters reduce abalone numbers, Raimondi’s study suggests an important synergy between the two species.
As sea otters recolonize their historical range, they improve ecosystem health. Johnson hopes the paper will inspire productive conversations, helping abalones and sea otters recover together.
May 15 marks the 10th anniversary of Endangered Species Day. At the aquarium, we’ve worked every day for the past 30 years to save wildlife from extinction.
It’s the focus of many of our efforts – from our living exhibits, to the research we conduct here and in the wild, to our work to shape public policy in ways that protect ocean habitats and wildlife.
Seafood Watch, too, contributes to wildlife protection by giving individuals and businesses tools so they can choose seafood that’s caught or farmed in ways that protect ocean ecosystems.
We’re not alone in our efforts. We’re part of a 229-member conservation organization – the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) – whose members are making a difference for wildlife around the world.
Collective action for conservation
Today, we’re stepping up in an even bigger way through a new initiative called AZA SAFE: Saving Animals From Extinction. We’re combining the collective power of our 180 million annual visitors with our resources and expertise to save animals from extinction.
For decades, we and our AZA colleagues have been conservation leaders so the world will preserve its incredible wildlife. At the aquarium, we’re actively working to understand and protect sea otters, sharks and bluefin tuna. We rescue and release wildlife including Western snowy plovers and stranded sea turtles. We’re working for the recovery of steelhead trout in California. And we raise corals that we share with other aquariums, to reduce the need to collect from the wild.
African penguin at Monterey Bay Aquarium
We’re the wildlife experts
Among conservation organizations, no one has more animals, scientists or access to the public than AZA-accredited aquariums and zoos. In addition to the visitors we reach, we have the largest group of life scientists working for species preservation. And we have the largest living wildlife collection – more than 75,000 animals representing over 6,000 species, including 1,000 endangered species.
Collectively, we spend $160 million each year on conservation projects and programs.
Through AZA SAFE, accredited aquariums and zoos will build on a legacy that began more than a century ago, when zoos brought the American bison back from the brink. In the future, we’ll do more. We’ll convene scientists and stakeholders globally to identify key factors threatening species, develop Conservation Action Plans and engage the public to help us make a difference. You can follow the latest developments via social media by using the hashtag #savingspecies.
A 10-year plan for saving species
In 2015, SAFE will focus on 10 endangered species, adding an additional 10 species each year for the next decade. The inaugural 10 species include several you can see in Monterey: African blackfooted penguins, sharks, Western pond turtles and sea turtles. Our next special exhibition, featuring marine life of Baja and the Gulf of California, is home to the critically endangered vaquita porpoise – another species that SAFE will work to recover.
How can you help? Every time you visit, you support our work to save animals from extinction. Our members are our partners in everything we do to assure a future with healthy oceans and abundant ocean wildlife.
When you stay in touch, as a member and through our social media accounts, we’ll let you know when you can take action to make a difference. And we’ll celebrate our progress – because, with your help, we are making progress!
Conservation & Science 