A once-abundant mollusk hammered by fishing, disease and even El Nino received federal protection Wednesday under the Endangered Species Act.

Black abalone, which once ranged across the Southern California coast, including Orange County’s, gained its new status after at wo-year assessment by the National Marine Fisheries Service. (Photo by David Witting, NOAA Restoration Center.)

The assessment was triggered by a petition from an environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity.

The black abalone fishery peaked in about 1973, after other, more desirable abalone species had already been fished to low numbers, said fisheries biologist Melissa Neuman at the National Marine Fisheries Service.

That brought a steep decline in black abalone numbers. Then came withering syndrome, a bacterial infection that causes the abalone’s anchoring foot to waste away, leaving it more vulnerable to predators and eventually killing it.

“The disease was the second punch in a one-two punch knockout,” Neuman said.

The species still hangs on in a few Southern California locations, such as San Nicolas Island, owned and operated by the Navy. But an animal that in past decades could be found in Orange County’s rocky intertidal habitat has not been seen anywhere on the Southern California coast since the early 1990s.

“There had been a nice, healthy population at Laguna Beach for awhile,” Neuman said. “Crystal Cove probably, down in Dana Point as well.”

Research has shown that warming water appears to help spread withering disease among abalone – both El Nino, a periodic rise in Pacific Ocean temperatures, and warm-water effluent from power plants.

That might be a sign of  things to come. Global warming will likely increase ocean temperatures, perhaps fueling more rapid transmission of withering disease.

The news from National Marine Fisheries wasn’t all bad, Neuman said. Some of the remnant populations of black abalone may be showing genetic resistance to the disease.

Abalone species in general have seen such steep declines that all are now protected by state law, with some having federal protection as well. California has only one legal fishery for abalone: recreational fishing for red abalone north of San Francisco. And even that is limited to free diving — no air tanks allowed.

Endangered species protection for the black abalone could help bring federal funding to California for increased law enforcement to protect the animals, and perhaps research dollars, Neuman said. It also requires National Marine Fisheries to be consulted on federally permitted projects that might intrude on black abalone or their habitat.

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