Lauren Bell of the Sitka Sound Science Center, is currently investigating local abalone populations (Photo SSSC).

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Former aquarium director Taylor White, a PhD student at University of California Santa Cruz, will be spending the summer underwater, continuing long-term monitoring on the Pinto abalone of Sitka Sound. Taylor talks about Sitka Sound Science Center’s ongoing abalone research and how it fits into her PhD.

Though southeast Alaska is the only place in north America where you can legally harvest pinto abalone for personal use, there has been little research on local populations – how big they are, how much they move around, and how affected they might by the recent uptick in sea otters in southeast Alaskan waters. White and Bell are both interested in answering some of those questions.

Kelp and Abalone: Sentinels for Climate Change from Sitka Sound Science Center on Vimeo.