In a way, it's depressing to say that this is the only spot I've ever seen a live abalone
because there used to be a stack of 10 abalone covering every rock surface everywhere in
the intertidal zone of California until we ate them all.
And that's kind of par for the course in the marine environment.
The human impact has been truly unimaginable in that I can't imagine what this place would
have looked like 100 years ago.
It would have been so different from what it looks like today.
This place has tide pools that are swarming with purple sea urchins, strangolocentrotus
purpuratus.
It's fun to say.
And they just sit there and wait for big pieces of the giant kelp, macrocystis, to drip by
and then they can grab it with their spines, pull it underneath them and chew it to pieces.
These are not exciting to anyone, but me, I emphasize that with this little guy.
They only live on the stems of this kind of kelp, so they spend their whole life just
crawling up and down these pieces of kelp, eating and looking for love.
This is one of the really big local snails, pelletswelk, and he'll stick his face out
if I just hold him like that.
So these are his little feelers, so that's his face.
A lot of our food chain is dependent on macrocystis, the giant kelp.
It can grow three feet in a day, so you can imagine how much growth and productivity is
happening here in our coastal waters, these brown algae are trapping the sunlight and
turning it into food for the urchins, the snails, and in turn for the things that eat them.
So that is the liquefied inside of the sea urchin that the starfish is actually eating.
So they turn their stomach inside out through their mouth and push it inside the shell.
They just finished this big study called the Census of Marine Life, which was a 10-year
survey trying to document how many species are out there and how many we haven't even
discovered yet.
And they looked in the deep sea, in the open ocean, in the Arctic, in the Antarctic.
It is amazing that you can still find undescribed, unknown species in a spot like this, right
here.
When you do set a place aside and make it a nature preserve and say people can't collect
there, they can't fish, they can't destroy the environment, it works.
I think Abalone Cove is healthier than most of the intertidal ecosystems that I have visited
up and down our coast, and I think it's important that people respect it because it does make
a difference.
When you set a place aside and stop herding it, nature does slowly rebound, and at least
it gives you some idea of what used to be here before people started messing with our
planet.
Wow.
Oh, that's thin?
Yeah.
Sorry.
Can I see you?
Yeah, yeah.
I can't believe you're holding a hot enough to sit right here.
It's like I gotta go now.
Hey buddy.
Yeah.
We're going to make you a star.
Makes you cute.
You're in one day on Earth.
First octopus ever.
Can I touch him?
Yeah.
Can I touch him?
Hi.
That's me.
Can I hold him?
Yeah, hold him.
Yeah, hold him.
The passing of the octopus.
Oh, oh.
Or not.
Yeah, one of them's on.
He's like.
He's crossing.
He's crossing.
Oh.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
Yeah, I see.
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
I see.
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
Oh, I see.
Oh, I see.
I see.
He's going to throw it in his hand.
I see.
Oh, I see.
I see.
I see.
I see.
Wow, you're full of octopus jokes.
Okay, I think we've just been preparing all this time.
It's magic.
Sure, I'm turning over rocks and you're writing sassy one-liner.
What?
I'm a sassy one-liner.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
