Caruso first started studying local abalone in 2009.<\/a> In 2013, she bought 69 farm-raised breeders and got permission to outplant them as a pilot project off Newport Beach, a test group they could gather data from, such as where they chose to live, how big they would grow, how much they moved and how close they needed to be to reproduce.<\/p>\nFrom that test case, the researchers found the abolone had to be at least six feet in distance to reproduce, preferably in groups of at least six for a greater chance of a male and female within the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually say, there needs to be one per every size of a smart car on a reef, or a dining room table,\u201d Caruso said.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Get Inspired earned permits from the California Fish and Wildlife Department to collect wild abalone, spawning about 8.5 million eggs. Caruso took batches of babies to classrooms, marine labs and an aquaculture farm in Santa Barbara, recruiting help to monitor the young as they grew in tanks. Thousands of students have learned about green abalone\u2019s plight through Get Inspired\u2019s classroom-based education outreach program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they settle, even when we grow them in captivity, there\u2019s a lot of mortality,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cIn the wild, it\u2019s even harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The abalone had to be grown to about 5 inches before being placed out in the ocean, or they would quickly be eaten.<\/p>\n
![\"Marine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/OCR-L-GREENABS-0312-03.jpg\")
Marine biologist Nancy Caruso restored the kelp forests near Crystal Cove in Newport Beach and then placed mature abalone, like the 10-year-old one she holds, in the ocean to study their outcome. (File photo: MINDY SCHAUER\/SCNG)<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to get them as big as possible, to get them the best chance at life,\u201d Caruso said.<\/p>\n
By 2024, there were about 1,200, mostly at the farm in Santa Barbara, that had survived and grown to a large enough size to be taken out to the ocean. A permit delay stalled the process.<\/p>\n
Then abnormally cold water hit.<\/p>\n
Much research has been conducted on how species react to warmer waters, due to anticipated global warming, Caruso said. But not much was known about the impacts of colder-than-normal conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was the coldest winter on record I could remember for the past 25 years,\u201d Caruso said.<\/p>\n
At the seaside farm where the remaining abalone were growing, the water got to 42 degrees.<\/p>\n
Then, Get Inspired got the devastating news: 80% of the 1,200 abalone had died.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried for two full days. We had worked so hard on that,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cWe were so excited we would have 1,200, that\u2019s a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just 125 remained. But then, the state wanted health checks on half of those, to make sure they were free of parasites and diseases.<\/p>\n
With the green light to do the release, Get Inspired had 60 abalone to place in the wild in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had many obstacles; this has been a wild and windy road,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cBut that is the life of the abalone, and we got to be a part of it. This is a really big deal, given all of the ups and downs we\u2019ve faced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since they were outplanted in December, her volunteer diving team has been out several times to monitor the abolone, though Caruso expects they will soon be on the move, hopefully living a full, healthy life.<\/p>\n
Caruso wants to remind the public that taking abalone is illegal \u2014 and asks that if anyone comes across any abalone in the wild, even if it\u2019s just shells or they are not alive, to get in contact through the Get Inspired website so she can log the findings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they see any, please let me know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The project is helping the California Department of Fish and Wildlife meet the goals of the Abalone Management and Recovery Plan, which aims to return depleted abalone populations to levels that are self-sustaining across their natural range.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis effort shows what can be achieved when science, community and state agencies work together toward a shared goal,\u201d Caruso said. \u201cThe return of green abalone represents hope, not just for this species, but for the resilience of California\u2019s marine environment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The green abalone were taken to the ocean and placed in a super secret location not to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1785,7,643,23,5860,100,611,136],"class_list":["post-219756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-beaches","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-local-news","tag-newport-beach","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Marine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/OCR-L-GREENABS-0312-06.jpg\")
Marine biologist Nancy Caruso at Table Rock Beach in Laguna. She and a team of volunteers search for signs that the depleted abalone are reproducing again on Tuesday, March 5, 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n![\"Marine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/OCR-L-GREENABS-0312-02.jpg\")
Marine biologist Nancy Caruso shows the under side of a green abalone raised in a classroom tank at Pacifica High in Garden Grove.The once abundant abalone are now a rare species, nearly wiped out in Southern California by disease and over harvesting. (File photo: Jeff Harris\/SCNG)<\/p>\n