♪♪♪ (Music) (Waves crashing) (Seals barking, seagulls screeching) (Kanyon Sayers Roods) Being raised in California, I have always been exposed to our cultural resources.

As I grew older, I started becoming more familiar with the red abalone.

It wasn't until adulthood did I start to realize the impact that today's society has had on their species.

(Deep rumbling echos) I have not had a chance to harvest any abalone, so I have not been able to engage in all of my traditional practices and it's frustrating.

So... we need to pray for them.

We need to remember that they are our relatives and we help each other.

We sustain each other, and we need to be responsible with being good stewards of the ocean and respecting the waters.

(Music) (Waves crashing) (Dr Brian Tissot) I've been studying abalone since the 1970s and I've noticed some big changes which have happened over those intervening decades.

Many of the species that we harvest, these larger individuals, like red abalone, are cold water adapted, so they are used to temperate environments, with very rich kelp seaweed resources and that environment has been changing for the last 30 or 40 years particularly.

And so as it changes, conditions that are ripe for healthy abalone stocks have also deteriorated, which is why a lot of the fisheries are now closed - worldwide.

I'm Dr. Brian Tissot I used to be the director of the Humboldt State University Marine Lab.

I was born in California and raised in California and spent most of my life studying abalone as well as other things.

The anatomy of abalone, which is one of the things that attracted me, is that they're basically big marine snails.

So except instead of a high arc spiral shell, what you see is they're very flattened and that creates a very large foot.

Their foot helps them attach because they typically live in very wave-swept or current-swept environments, and that's partially because they're adapted to eating seaweeds.

They're capturing pieces of kelp that are drifting by in the current, which requires a high volume of kelp for them to survive with that strategy.

But they're used to that and kelp forests are very productive.

And so that foot is a big part of their anatomy.

Then what you see off of that is a bunch of little tentacles which is what's called their epipodium.

So they can sense their environment 360 degrees and they can tell if there's predators that want to eat them.

You know, like humans, a lot of things want to eat abalone, right?

Lobsters, crabs, sea otters, and so they're very sensitive to things, sneaking up on them, trying to eat them.

The foot is a big part of what you go after when you're trying to eat an abalone.

And of course, all of that is contained in this beautiful mother of pearl shell, which is coveted all over the world.

And all the species are so different and so beautiful.

(Joyful music) (Linda Yamane) I love to look at something beautiful and I love to create beautiful things.

That's what makes me the happiest.

As a California Indian basket maker and regalia maker, I often use abalone in the things that I create.

(Music) Abalone... is very much featured as the decorative elements hanging at the end of strands of shells.

It's such a foundational part of our culture.

It is - it is like California Indian culture.

It is indigenous beauty.

And it was shared all across this state and outside of what are now the state boundaries.

So it was appreciated and sought after thousands of miles from here.

It eventually traded and traveled.

(Music) (Hillary Renick) Red abalone is always home for me because it's right outside our front door.

We've been here and I could go to Library of Congress and find a story from 1780, from my grandma from right here.

I went to an archeological site in Mandan, North Dakota, and there was red abalone disc earrings there and at that time I had the same earrings on and so my friend who was from there was like, “Oh my gosh, it's like you were here 5000 years ago!” It's like, yes, this is a huge trade network that has went over the North American continent for thousands of years.

(Music fades) (Footsteps on the dirt) (Gentle waves crashing) (Leah Mata Fragua) The preference of using red abalone is because that's one of the species that's indigenous to our areas.

We have other species of abalone but the one that really resonates and is most recognizable to indigenous coastal people of California is that red abalone.

Trying to find alternatives for that is difficult because other mediums or other shells just don't have the same sound or just don't have the same look.

When you change your medium, then it changes the whole aesthetics.

And so things not only sound and look different and feel different, they are different.

And so it becomes unrecognizable to elders.

It's it's sad to see something that has been a part of our community, a part of our sustainability for thousands and thousands of years to just be gone from our communities.

(Somber music) (Linda Yamane) I have randomly found broken pieces of abalone, but I just happened to be very fortunate that a lot of friends over the years and acquaintances, once they learned what I do, started keeping their eyes open for abalone shells at a flea markets in the Bay Area.

I just feel that the stash, so to speak, that I have in my garage is like a bank for the future.

That's how I've always thought of them.

(Leah Mata Fragua) As someone who works in place-based art, my work is reliant upon the resources that I need from my community to continue those art forms that have been passed down for generations.

Whether that's stones or gems or coral or any other types of medium that artists use.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to access those materials because of climate change.

And so looking at how then do we teach or pass on place-based arts to younger generations if we don't have access to those materials?

The older I get, of course, the more I think about the importance of these traditions and carrying on into the future and trying to share the things that I've learned with younger generations.

(Music and birds chirping) (Kanyon Sayers Roods) To me, it's medicine.

It's what my ancestors and my community ate.

It's what we used.

It's what we teach with.

It's how we represent ourselves and it's what gives us good energy.

It's what, it's a way to share because part of our cultural protocols, is gifting.

When it comes to gift giving abalone is very significant as well as whatever else we have that is in abundance and of resource to offer gifts or to offer medicine is a good way to connect community.

(Hillary Renick) It's so worth it, to give somebody some food or to pick some medicine to make them tea, to to bring them something that gives them a little bit of comfort.

Just like everybody has their position and place in the community.

There's other people whose job it is to provide the food.

It's your duty to try to help them.

And I mean, it could be a phone call.

It could be traditional food.

Usually if they're sick, like physically, they want traditional food, but it makes them feel good, especially if they think they're about to cross over to the next world and meet their their family.

It makes, it calms their spirit because they're scared to die.

And so you want to give that.

Somebody might have, you know, several dozen abalone, but they're sharing it with a large group of people and it's really not like that person is disproportionately picking the abalone.

It's that's the person that is gathering for that whole community for that event.

And it's supposed to bring honor to that person.

(Music) (Jeremy McFarland) My experience with abalone diving revolved around my family.

It was never a sport, really, or a competition.

It was more of just for the enjoyment and providing food for the larger family as a whole.

Because not everyone dove for abalone, but a lot of people enjoyed eating abalone and you know, so there's that whole community around it and our family was definitely a part of that.

(Music swelling) (Waves crashing) (Footsteps) When I was younger freediving was early in the morning, (Footsteps) (Waves crashing) It typically involved just you and a wetsuit because the water is cold.

A weight belt with a partner, and typically you're going out with a tube or some form of kayak or something to put your abalone in Abalone diving is this free diving alone.

So no scuba equipment.

(Waves crashing and splashing water) (Music swelling) What it involves is diving down, holding your breath on snorkel and you have one tool and that's a dive iron.

And using that dive iron, you got to be quick on releasing the abalone because the abalone will just clamp down onto the rock.

If they know or feel the presence of something else in the water.

And so you use a dive iron to pluck off the abalone from the rocks, and then you bring it back up to the surface and then you can keep it in your dive tube or kayak.

(Music and deep bubbling rumble) (Music and waves crashing) (Dr Brian Tissot) The hope is, that the fishery will get restarted at some point, and that may be what we call a de minimis fishery in the sense that it's not what it formerly was, but there's some small fishery which still allows people to come and get abalone, but only in very small quantities.

But over years, you know, then you can get back in here.

And this is important for cultural reasons.

People love abalone, they love to be involved, it's the whole hunt.

There's whole communities in Mendocino and Sonoma County, which are dependent on people coming to collect abalone.

And so that's a big part of the culture and the economies of those coastal towns.

Given the precipitous decline of red abalone that has happened, we're really going to be careful.

And that's why the state is taking their time thinking about this, To not bring it back and then have to shut it down again.

They want something that's sustainable as much as possible, which is really difficult given this uncertain times in our oceanographic history.

(Deep, gurgling water) (Dr Peter Raimondi) The red abalone industry in particular has crashed.

Left by themselves they should recover, but that's based upon the idea that the system that they live in is also going to be more or less like it was before.

But the events of the last few years, five years in particular since maybe 2014, 2015, have been really very different and led to the closure.

And we're so different environmentally that if that doesn't change, then it's unlikely to me that there will be recovery sufficient, that they can go back to the way it was before with the level of fishing intake that there was before.

(Gentle water rushing) (Dr Brian Tissot) The key thing is the warming of the ocean and so we've always had kind of cold and warm years.

We've had El Niño years and non-El Niño years.

But what has happened is the frequency of these warming events is becoming more and more to the sense where we're almost always in some kind of warming or cooling environment.. And that's not healthy for cold water species, which most California species are adapted to, you know, their typical environment.. And so what you've seen is associated with that is kelp forests.

Kelp forests are very dynamic.

They go up and down naturally with warm years, cold years, big storms, small storms, waves.

But overall, the amount of kelp has declined significantly in the state of California and worldwide.

So now we see just a fraction of the kelp forests that we used to have.

And of course, those are food for abalone as well as a lot of other species that are also in decline in response to that.. (Dr. Peter Raimondi) We started seeing sea stars just disintegrating under water.

So we saw this progression of disease ripping through the community.

And it was really creepy because you'd see these half stars walking around and other things eating them.

And and then that led to a because of the loss of one of the species, which is the sunflower star urchins start emerging.

And so the urchins came out of the cracks and crevices because their main predator was gone.

And so they come out and then the kelp started going away.

And when this kelp starts going away, then the urchins get even more aggressive because there's no food.

And they come out in these kind of lines, these huge numbers, and start mowing down everything Turning areas in urchin barrens.

(Dr Brian Tissot) Because urchins are a natural part of a kelp first community.

But when the kelp forests drops to a certain level, urchins aren't getting their food.

They'll go out looking for it.

And thats why we get these oscillations in the amount of kelp over time.

And when you don't have these top predators eating the urchins, what happens then is that urchins are not in check and they have helped damage the kelp forests significantly.

And that, of course, impacts everything that depends on kelp, particularly abalone.

(Dr Peter Raimondi) Abalone and urchins are pretty different in one important way.

When urchins get hungry, they go rogue, and when they go rogue, they have a thing called a lantern, which is the kind of device that they can feed with.

They can just tear up stuff.

And so they'll go and oftentimes they will, you know, they're eating everything in sight..

But with like kelp, have these things that are like branches, what we call stipes, and there's bulbs of air on them.

and they hold it upright.

When urchin clips it at the bottom, the whole thing just floats away.

And so they get a little bit of food, but the rest of it kind of flows to the surface and it floats away or they eat the whole thing.

Abalone don't have that ability.

They really do rely upon drift.. And so when they drift goes away because the urchins are clearing out everything, they really don't have much to go on.

They need the kelp or whatever the algae is in the system.

And so they can't they can't do the same thing as urchins.

And they are not in any stretch of imagination immortal.

They will shrink and decay and they'll sometimes get diseased as they get starving.

And then that disease can be transmitted.

And so when they start going, they go fast.

(Music) (Jeremy McFarland) The big aspect and I think what a lot of people are missing today are those kelp forests and those moments of being underwater and looking up and seeing the sun and seeing the kelp, seeing all the fish and the wildlife that's out there.

And that's one thing I miss.

But more so than that, too, is the community itself in Mendocino has changed since the abalone fisheries has closed.

And that's a sad thing to see, especially growing up.

Restaurants that I used to go to as a kid are now closed and the one dive shop in Northern California in Mendocino is now closed as well.

And that's a huge heartbreak to the community as a whole.

(Dr Peter Raimondi) The most remarkable thing to me is how the this area, the red abalone sport diving area fundamentally changes when the season is in place.

So you go up there to Mendocino or further north or further south, and out of abalone season and the campgrounds would be largely empty and there would be a little bit of, you know, kind of tourism, but the place would be quiet.

And when you go up there during season, at least when there was a season, it was a completely different place because this is one of the fisheries where almost everyone had access to it everyone can go to the shoreline and there were campgrounds and people went to the same campgrounds year after year and they took their kids to them and they grew up and they took their kids to them and they camp next to each other and for a week or two weeks they would be there.

And it was like a culture that emerged.

It supported a lot of the of the kind of the businesses up there for that short period of time when there was abalone being collected.

And it was just something that I think brought people together that were would never seen each other.

Some people came from Modesto, some people came from from Mendocino, but they were all together and having a good time.

And so it was it was really that was the hardest part.

When they shut it down, was to think of all these people that and that part of their life was gone (Crackling fire while folk music fades) (Waves crashing) (Deep gurgling) (Leah Mata Fragua) It's difficult to not have access to something that was so plentiful, that was so normalized part of our community to no longer have access to it..

It's it's devastating.

It's sad.

The place that I'm in now is looking at what are those alternatives or what can we replace so that we can kind of continue some of those traditions.

Climate change is going to create shifts and pivots for a lot of people in a lot of industries.

And people have to be willing to say, let this rest and do something else.

And that's hard because a lot of industries rely on the ocean, a lot of people rely on what the ocean provides.

(Tristin Anoush McHugh) Right now, we're entering year three of a kelp forest restoration project.

And so this project is state funded by the state of California and our goal is to really understand if kelp forests can be recovered at certain places.

What can we possibly do on our actions as humans to keep kelp from disappearing anymore than it already has So in this particular example, we're manipulating the urchin density.

So the number of urchin on a reef down to as low as we can get it, which is around two urchin per meter square.

So we're trying to understand if a system that is manipulated in urchin density could be flipped back to some form of kelp for a state.

And how does the ecosystem respond to those changes?

And are we helping or are we hurting?

We do know from places all over the world that kelp restoration is a practice, it's a cultural practice.

And so part of the back end of it is also how we as a society are in this space culturally accept maybe these practices that could come into play for restoration.

(Music and deep gurgle) (Footsteps) (Jeremy McFarland) Im still in the beginning stages of my research, but my ultimate goal is working with multiple stakeholders such as the government and local tribes, fishing communities, and using archeology as a tool to understand changes in past environments and past climate to significantly improve management decisions by understanding how indigenous groups have lived along the coast and lived in harmony with their coastal resources.

(Tristin Anoush McHugh) Globally theres a lot of momentum around kelp forest restoration, so I think there's a lot that we can learn from other cultures and places who have entered this new phase, which is a phase devoid of kelp.

So I think there's that humility and saying potentially we need help in doing this and going out to others and saying, what has worked for you?

What hasn't worked for you?

They're doing something to better understand what what's the best way to potentially resolve this.

The way we're doing it now might not be the best way, and I think that's an important aspect of archeology and working with indigenous tribes and learning about past ways, particularly how people have been stewards of the land and coastal resources.

And I think understanding that might provide us with new ideas on how to approach managing these resources today and opening up to fisheries as a whole for all sorts of communities to enjoy.

(Tristin Anoush McHugh) I think policy-wise, leaning into what has potentially worked in other places and being open minded to pilot testing those out in our spaces is probably a really good next step.

(Music and waves crashing) (Seagulls calling) (Kanyon Sayers Roods) It is important that with the work I do, I teach and encourage people to think about how their actions and words impact not only themselves, their family, their community, their environment, but the next seven generations in the future.

I tend to share with people that indigenous pedagogies can help us strategize sustainable futures, and part of that is acknowledging how much we impact the world around us.

Are we supporting sustainable sources?

Are we respecting and giving back?

Are we engaging in a reciprocal, humble, accountable relationship with all of our relatives?

Our community is the green, Our community is the living.

Our community is everything.

Our kinship to the plant relatives, our relationship to the animals.

When it comes to the abalone, we pray with the abalone and pray for their species because red ab, spotted ab, black ab, green and blue pink, more species names that I may not be able to cite or know.

However I recognize they are our relatives and their population has been drastically impacted.

(Music swells) (Gentle water rushing) (Deep gurgles) (Music) (Music) ♪♪♪