After Five Years, Scientists Spot a Ghost: The White Abalone Returns

Finding a needle in a haystack sounds hard. Finding a white abalone in the California kelp forests? That’s the updated metaphor experts are using—and on May 12th, 2026, they actually pulled it off.

For the first time in five years, researchers aboard the NOAA research vessel Shearwater spotted a living white abalone during a survey near the Channel Islands. It might not sound like breaking news, but for a species that’s been on the brink of extinction, this single sighting is a reminder that recovery, however fragile, is still possible.

The white abalone is a critically endangered sea snail that’s had a rough century. Populations have nosedived 99% since the 1970s, leaving so few individuals scattered across California’s coast that they can’t naturally reproduce—they’re simply too isolated from each other. Add in the collapse of the kelp forests themselves, devastated by sea urchin plagues, and you get a creature fighting on two fronts just to survive.

Julie Bursek, education and outreach coordinator for Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, led the team that made the discovery near Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands. The survey wasn’t just about spotting one animal; it was part of a broader effort to map where white abalone might still exist and what kind of habitat could support their comeback. The team deployed new environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling technology, which picks up genetic material organisms shed into the water—a forensic tool for the ocean that lets scientists track invisible residents.

The real work starts now. Finding one abalone proves they’re not completely gone. But whether enough of them remain in the right places, with the right conditions to naturally recover, is the question that’ll define whether this species gets a second act. Citizen scientists and recreational divers are being asked to keep their eyes open as part of the Wanted Alive! White Abalone campaign. In a recovery this delicate, every sighting counts.