Cabrillo Marine Aquarium researchers gathered around four buckets in the aquatic nursery Tuesday afternoon, waiting patiently for the endangered white abalone inside to get in the mood.
White abalone are believed to be nearly extinct, and the San Pedro aquarium partnered with the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach this week to try to beef up the research population.
There are at least eight species of abalone living in waters off the California coast. They are all in decline because of decades of fishing and withering syndrome, a disease that causes their feet to atrophy and makes them vulnerable to predators and starvation.
"White abalone is probably the most imperiled" of all the abalone species, the aquarium's research curator Kiersten Darrow said. "We've thinned out the population so much, we've definitely overfished them. The wild population is pretty much done for. Researchers (in California) are the only ones breeding this species."
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