Dead abalone....

Have seen on Facebook reports of people diving in the Fort Ross area and finding lots of abalone laying upside down on their backs, and apparently dead or dying....there was talk about how it might be related to the plankton bloom in the area??

Even a report of rangers asking divers to go pick up and bring back to shore the "dead" abalone so they could be sent off for testing...

 

Anybody else have any insight/info on what might be going on??

Sincerely,

Jim

Upgradeing?

http://cosmicbuddha.com/adam/2011/08/mysterious-abalone-die-off/

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I've been reading about this on a few forums now. Doesn't sound good, especially if it's widespread. We get plankton blooms every year and I've never read about this kind of thing before.

 

Hi Divers:

    Could it be AVG abalone viral ganglioneuritis ?

"An outbreak of abalone viral ganglioneuritis (AVG) occurred at a farm on Tasmania’s east coast, resulting in farm and processing facility closure and implementation of a biosecurity plan designed to contain the outbreak, which the Department of Primary Industries has reported to have not yet spread to the wild. AVG is a highly virulent herpes-like virus with neurologic effects in abalone, causing weakness and death. The virus spreads from host-to-host through direct contact, the water column, and mucus expelled by dying abalone. The virus cannot long survive dry conditions. Be reassured, the virus carries no risk for infected abalone handlers or consumers. Unfortunately, there is considerable economic risk for the producer, suggested by previously reported figures. In 2007, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries reported that AVG eliminated up to 90% of abalone stock in affected regions. "



http://humanvirosphere.blogspot.com/2011/01/abalone-die-off.html

This was posted over on Matt Mattison's NorCal UnderwaterHunters site:

Just got the phone with the abalone DFG folks. Yes dead abalone over the past few days have been collected and these and some others have been sent to the Bodega Marine lab to determine the cause of death for the sampled abalone. Because of the reported localized "red tide" event that has occurred and is occurring the "guess" is until pathology reports confirm otherwise, abalone and other less mobile sea life may have suffered from a lack of less oxygen or some type of oxygen toxicity related issue perhaps in part due to the red tide events. Furthermore it was suggested, as precautionary measure, until the pathology findings determines otherwise the cause of the deaths of abalone sampled from the localized area, from Ft. Ross to Fisk Mill Cove that the abalone not be consumed. Freeze it for now guys it is the safe bet. We may know soon as to what the cause was but until the lab gets back to us be safe. 

Hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes by reposting the info, but wanted to let you guys know what is going on with the snails....

 

Sincerely,

Jim

yea this sux , anyone with updated info plz post

I have seen two and only two abalone with withering syndrome in my life. They werent dead but shriveled in the shell once they were pulled from the water. The red tide event that is now out there(still I think) is the longest I can ever remember. If thats the caes I could see them dying from oxygen depletion from that. It will be interesting to find out more. There has never been to my knowledge a die-off like this around the Ft Ross area. Once a while back there were sustained rough ocean conditions during a winter that pounded the coast for two weeks. Severe swells. Hundreds of abalone washed up on the beach at Stillwater Cove. Rangers were begging people to take them. Hah! I think they should open up the Stewarts Point Preserve so we can dive again until this is cleared up.

They were gonna close Ft Ross anyway, I guess. Here it comes.

Yeah i saw that tide tues. I sucked and i didnt wana dive in it. To bad cuz the viz was prob. 20 feet out past my range. Fishing was good though

Even a report of rangers asking divers to go pick up and bring back to shore the "dead" abalone so they could be sent off for testing...

...while they wait at the beach with their citation books in hand. 
Whatever is causing the problem I hope it passes quickly.

https://californiaoutdoors.wordpress.com/

Rare abalone die-off in Sonoma County
Question: I was diving in Sonoma County last weekend (Aug 28) in Fisk Mill Cove. The water was dirty as if there was a plankton bloom and visibility was only four to five feet. On my very first dive to about 12 feet I looked into a cave in the rocks with my light and saw something I’ve never seen before in 50 years of diving for abalone. There was an abalone laying upside down and clinging to a piece of kelp rather than clinging to a rock like usual. My dive partner told me he picked up two similar abalone on one dive. They were also in a rock cave just laying upside down on the rocks. Later we met two other divers who had been diving at Timber Cove the day before and they too came across a couple of abalone laying upside down on their shells among the rocks.

Have you heard or seen this before? Are these abalone dying? Is the plankton bloom doing something to the abs? Are the abs suffocating from the plankton bloom? Are the abalone ok to eat? (T. Yamashita)

Answer: What you observed last weekend in Sonoma County is a rare die off event and your observations are similar to many reports we’ve received from other abalone divers in the area. All of the reports mention abalone observed lying upside down on the bottom and the water a dark brown color with visibility less than a foot. Reports have come from Fort Ross State Park, Russian Gulch, Timber Cove and Salt Point State Park where the abalone are dying.

According to DFG Senior Marine Biologist Ian Taniguchi, these abalone deaths coincided with local phytoplankton blooms (red tide), accumulations of drift kelp and calm ocean conditions. Similar invertebrate die-offs have occurred along the North Coast in the past, typically inside protected coves and under similar ocean conditions. The abalone deaths may be due in part to the large phytoplankton bloom, but the investigation is still ongoing. While we don’t know exactly what’s causing the die-offs, we do know they are not due to Withering Foot Syndrome – a fatal disease found in some Southern California abalone.  Withering Foot Syndrome is specific to abalone (in this case, sea stars appear to be dying as well) and causes the abalone’s body to shrink (also not the case in this instance).

Large phytoplankton blooms can make some filter-feeding shellfish like mussels and clams toxic to humans and cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. Abalone are not filter-feeders though – they eat kelp and other seaweeds. At this time, the abalone season is still open and all harvest regulations remain in effect

The California Department Public Health (CDPH) is collecting samples of shellfish for analysis from the affected area and advises recreational consumers to be cautious and not consume seafood that may have been affected by the bloom. CDPH will post their analysis results as soon as they are available at www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Pages/DDWEM.aspx.

Sincerely,

Jim

amazing sad pic http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110907/ARTICLES/110909674/1350?Title=Abalone-die-off-plagues-the-coast

 

Fellow divers and fishermen,

What you've seen in the above is but the slimmest portrait of how bleak this situation is. That tiny snapshot is what you'll find for MILES on our coastline. From Bodega Bay, up towards the Mendo County line, sealife in the dead zone that struck in the last two weeks has been erased from existence. Anything that could not move or swim away was killed. I believe in my heart of hearts that we've seen the end of Abalone diving on the Sonoma Coast, for good. It is beyond gut wrenching to see all that life dead. Dan Silveira, the famed spearo, dove Ocean Cove two days ago, in 2' of visibility and found numerous dead abs on each dive. He did not find a live abalone until he reached a depth of 45 feet. Every urchin, mussel, little bitty critter, ab, that was fixed in place- GONE.  You have to see it to believe it. Not in our lifetimes have we seen this, nor even heard of this kind of devastation. SRJ