50 DECEMBER 2024 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG FIGURE 1. The Cultured Abalone Farm. Flow-through troughs used to grow red abalone for commercial purposes and white abalone to rebuild wild populations. Aquaculture and conservation-focused organizations haven’t always gotten along, the latter usually pretty suspicious of commercial aquaculture and its potential impacts on the environment. To that end, when these groups do work together it normally involves conservation groups assisting commercial aquaculture to operate in ways that are less impactful on the environment. Think World Wildlife Fund assisting farmers to earn sustainable certification programs (WWF 2024) like Aquaculture Stewardship Council or Conservation International’s Climate Smart Shrimp program (ORRAA 2024) which is an initiative to improve shrimp farming sustainability by facilitating an engineering approach to upgrade traditional shrimp farms through intensification of production in some ponds and restoration of mangroves in others. More recently with the reimagining of Conservation Aquaculture defined by Froelich et al. (2017) as “the use of human cultivation of an aquatic organism for the planned management and protection of a natural resource” conservation organizations are discovering the power of aquaculture to advance their conservation goals and are now leaning more on the industry to help them. Froelich et al. 2017 describe conservation aquaculture from single-species scale to ecosystem-level benefits, including examples like habitat restoration of oyster beds, cultivation of species for population rebuilding or harvest that could provide wild harvest alleviation through replacement or supplement (e.g. the aquarium trade), and ecosystem services like improved water quality through filter feeding. Ridlon et al. (2021) go further to describe opportunities and considerations for novel partnerships between conservation organizations and aquaculture industries by leveraging industry resources, incentivizing the implementation of conservation aquaculture protocols, and producing innovative aquaculture technology for both sectors. Following is a closer examination of some of these commercial/conservation partnerships. Scale White abalone, native to the West Coast of the U.S have the dubious honor of being declared the first endangered marine invertebrate under the U.S Endangered Species Act. This has prompted a group of dedicated people under the banner of the White Abalone Recovery Program (Hayes 2017) to work with state and federal agencies, universities, conservation organizations and most recently a commercial red abalone farm, The Cultured Abalone Farm (Figure 1). This recent partnership has leveraged the infrastructure and expertise of the commercial abalone farm to spur the program on to record releases of the endangered white abalone into the wild. Part of the Cultured Abalone Farm’s infrastructure was used to raise the white abalone alongside the commercially grown red abalone at scales significantly larger than those available from non-commercial restoration partners. The farm also hosted a workshop for all the other white abalone captive breeding partners to facilitate a technology transfer on how they grow their abalone at scale to help improve the efficiency of the conservation captive breeding program for the endangered species. Putting the commercial infrastructure benefits aside, the husbandry information that commercial aquaculture has gained over many years has been invaluable to conservation-minded organizations like the White Abalone Recovery Program. Infrastructure What is somewhat unique to marine aquaculture operations on the U.S West Coast is the high price to secure aquaculture permits, as well as infrastructure like seawater intake systems. Another very successful conservation aquaculture organization, the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF), has been involved in restoring a FIGURE 2. Olympia oyster cluster, cultured in a hatchery using commercial techniques and destined for outplanting to restore wild populations in Elkhorn Slough California. USAS CHAPTER ARTICLE: Commercial Aquaculture Flipping the Script to Help Conservation Groups Luke Gardner
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