Wine grapes are by far and away the largest cash crop in San Luis Obispo County. Cattle, strawberries and broccoli are next in line. On the bottom of the economic rung are cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and abalone. That’s right: Abalone!
Recently I toured The Abalone Farm with fellow volunteers at the Marine Mammal Center. The Farm was founded in 1968 and is situated on 18 acres adjacent to Estero Bay, between Cayucos and Cambria on California’s Central Coast. It has the distinction of being the largest abalone farm in the United States.
Red abalone spawn just like fish: Eggs and sperm are released into the water where fertilization occurs, Offspring hatch within 24 hours in a nursery tank where they live for at least eight months. The brown things at the bottom of the tank are the developing abalone.
Recently I toured The Abalone Farm with fellow volunteers at the Marine Mammal Center. The Farm was founded in 1968 and is situated on 18 acres adjacent to Estero Bay, between Cayucos and Cambria on California’s Central Coast. It has the distinction of being the largest abalone farm in the United States.
Red abalone spawn just like fish: Eggs and sperm are released into the water where fertilization occurs, Offspring hatch within 24 hours in a nursery tank where they live for at least eight months. The brown things at the bottom of the tank are the developing abalone.
When the abalone the large enough, they’re moved outside to floating baskets in concrete tanks. At this is where they begin feeding exclusively on kelp that is harvested in the Pacific, just off the coast from the Farm. The tanks water conditions must be pristine which, requires a sophisticated filtration system.
After two years the red abalone grow to 2 inches and they’re ready for one of the 700 grow-out tanks at The Abalone Farm. Again the animals subsist on plenty of tender, juicy kelp.
Finally, by year 5 the red abalone is 3.5 to 4.5 inches in shell length, which is the most efficient size to send red abalone to market. The Farm ships live abalone all over the world. A smaller segment of their business is producing pre-tenderized abalone steaks for many high-end, West Coast Restaurants.
Bon Apetite!
Lilliputian Surfer Dude Invades Cambria!
Erik and Rachel took Ronan on his first extended road trip several weeks ago to visit Grandma Di and Grandpa Roger in Cambria. Rather than describing the action (and I mean action!) in words, I thought it would be much more appropriate to use a captioned slideshow to describe the vivacity of the weekend!
California Sea Lions Are Taking It In The Flippers!
Seemingly ubiquitous on California’s Central Coast, California Sea Lions are perishing in record numbers in 2009. This is especially true of yearlings. Unfortunately, I’ve had first-hand experience with this cataclysm. Earlier this week, on Wednesday, I was called out on five strandings in the Cambria-San Simeon area on one day alone; all were younger California Sea Lions (CSLs). And I wasn’t even scheduled to work that day!
To add further to the grim statistics, in The Marine Mammal Center’s area of responsibility alone, there has been over a 300% increase in the CSL stranding. Additionally, the annual count of dead CSL yearling during the annual survey of recovered CSL has gone from a norm of 1000-1500 CSL pups to over 6000!
The root cause of these problems seems to be a severe decrease in the food supply. According to Bob DeLong of the California Ecosystem Research Project, water temperature changes, water current changes and ocean upwelling changes have all contributed to the paucity of available food supplies. Other marine mammals and sea birds are also being adversely affected, but to a lesser extent.
In 2009, some California Sea Lion yearlings make it.....many do not.
LOVE AND RESPECT OUR PLANET!
To add further to the grim statistics, in The Marine Mammal Center’s area of responsibility alone, there has been over a 300% increase in the CSL stranding. Additionally, the annual count of dead CSL yearling during the annual survey of recovered CSL has gone from a norm of 1000-1500 CSL pups to over 6000!
The root cause of these problems seems to be a severe decrease in the food supply. According to Bob DeLong of the California Ecosystem Research Project, water temperature changes, water current changes and ocean upwelling changes have all contributed to the paucity of available food supplies. Other marine mammals and sea birds are also being adversely affected, but to a lesser extent.
In 2009, some California Sea Lion yearlings make it.....many do not.
LOVE AND RESPECT OUR PLANET!
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4 comments:
Very interesting about the abalone - who'd a thought those big monsters the boys dove for take so LONG to get that size! Love the montage of Ronan with Surfin' Safari - brings back good memories :-) And the CSLs, what can I say? I wonder what your group would make of the unending broohaha here in La Jolla over the sea lions vs. the children's pool. Should they stay or should they go.... seems there's a song with that line, too.
Are those CSLs or harbor seals at La Jolla Cove...either way, La Jollans had better suck it up and learn to love those critters. Once live births have taken place in an area, it has become a rookery. The only way to get rid of the seals is to destroy them. They will just come back if they're moved ANYWHERE, except to an aquarium. I shudder to think what would happen to La Jolla if these animals were harmed!
Aside from inaccurate inner monologue text from Ronan, that vid montage is great! Interesting story on abalone... harvesting them from the wild requires a shell length of greater than seven inches.
Re: La Jolla Cove pinipeds - I don't know what they are technically, but they're called "seals". They've been there 10-15 years maybe - it's certainly a rookery since live births happen every year. A perennial fight between the animal lovers and the humans who want the "Children's Pool" back. The city council has proposed (get this) either live dogs chasing the seals out to sea, or loud speakers of barking dogs 24/7! This is the best our supposedly intelligent members of City Council can do! It's been a court battle, a la the cross on Mt. Soledad and will continue to be one ad infinitum I'm afraid
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