December 19, 1964
SHELLED ABALONE Fish and Game Wardens Russell Goodrich, left, and Alvin Stewart display a few of the 281 abalone which had been removed from the shell and brought into Morro Bay aboard the commercial abalone boat Lancia. (Jack Wilson photo.)
This is a story we don’t see today. There are illegal clam busts from time to time at Pismo Beach but since the otters returned, abalone are hard to find in this quantity.
The wardens had been observing the operation since August and when they moved in one of the suspects said, “There goes my Christmas.”
The value of the 281 abalone was estimated at $180 in 1964 dollars. That works out to about $1.50 per shellfish.
Today a gift pack of [16] tenderized abalone steaks with 4 shells and recipes is $115.
Click on the front page and check out the lead story; someone thought building a new Panama Canal was a good idea. Guess they didn’t have enough to work on with a war in Viet Nam, war on poverty, civil rights unrest and the Cold War with the communists.
UPDATE: While researching another post this second front page article turned up from August 16, 1963. It describes a mound of abalone shells between 4 and 10 feet high for nearly a mile along Cayucos Creek.
More than two million pounds of abalone were taken in 1962 by the commercial fishing industry.
The headline says “Abalone Hunters Must Take Some Blame for Depletion”.
No explanation in the article how sea otters dragged the shells so far inland.
No related posts.
Fish and Game wardens tell me that they still make the occasional abalone poaching bust along the Central Coast. These take place from San Simeon north into Big Sur. This is because a disease called withering syndrome has wiped out black abalone south of San Simeon. Black abalone are usually poached from tide pools at low tide. It is illegal to harvest abalone south of San Francisco. Disease, historic overharvesting and predation by sea otters has reduced populations of the mollusks to unsustainable levels. North of San Francisco, red abalone can be taken by free divers only. The plight of the black abalone is so severe that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is recommending that the animal be added to the Endangered Species List.
David Sneed
Tribune environment reporter
The new caption with this photo blames sea otters as the primary cause for the current lack of abalone along our coast. If I’m not mistaken, this is a seriously contested viewpoint.
The situation is more complex than indicated by this casual scapegoating of the otters. It ignores other significant factors.
As I understand it, many people believe over harvesting and pollution by humans has been equally, if not more detrimental to abalone than otters.
I don’t have any scientific data on hand to back up either claim. Does The Tribune?
Unfortunately, publicly blaming sea otters for fishery problems has led to the justification of (illegal) self-righteous, surreptitious human slaughtering of sea otters along the coast by fishermen and divers ( who also lack scientific data.)
Sea otters and abalone managed to co-exist locally for thousands of years. What changed?
Thanks for the posts Davids.
A clarification is in order here. The Tribune does not write, edit or research this blog. It is the work of one author and as a result it reflects the limitations of the author.
I encourage comments with opposing views, deeper expertise, and shared memories.
This is a blog, a snapshot of how things used to be in contrast to today.
My science credentials come from listening to at least a dozen episodes of the satirical Ask Dr. Science radio show on KCBX (“I have a MASTER’S degree. In Science!”)
The blog also accepts comments from folks with names other than David.
Withering Syndrome is one reason why the black, and other species of abalone, have declined. In the 1980′s people farming abalone brought abalone in from South Africa, Haliotis midae, which were NOT Quarantined!
There is now some evidence that Withering Syndrome arrived with those abalone, and another parasite of abalone – a type of polychaete worm, and then both of these parasites were spread throughout California by abalone farms selling “seed” abalone to other farms. The Dept. of Fish and Game had officers involved in abalone farming and the knowledge of their complicity may have been suppressed, and possibly covered-up.
If you read the literature (available online) then you’ll see that the source of Withering Syndrome was and still is (nearly thirty years later) the abalone farms.
Some installed longer pipelines to get colder water which suppresses the growth of the parasite that causes Withering Syndrome. Their effluent keeps re-infecting wild populations and this last Summer many of abalone near Santa Barbara, Ca in 30 feet of water died after the water temperature rose higher than normal. These were green abalone.
Now the black abalone are almost extinct and they are in the process of getting listed as an endangered species. However, if Withering Syndrome is not eliminated in the farms, then all abalone will go extinct except in the farms where the water temperature is controlled.
If this means anything to you, then contact National Marine Fisheries Service and let them know that this needs to be looked into, plus the possible complicity by Fish & Game, and there’s already a precedent for eliminating the source. The aquarium in Long Beach had to install a closed system in order to display abalone and their effluent goes into the sewer or is treated before it leaves the aquarium. The farms need to destroy the infected animals they have and/or treat the effluent from their farms! The sea otters will thank you!
First, you have greatly overstated th current price of abalone. The $115 gift pack you refer to contains 16 abalone, not 4. The price also includes overnight shipping to anywhere in the continental US, which is at least $50.
Second, the anonymous poster accusing abalone farms of being the source of withering syndrome (WS) is confusing 2 separate events. It is true that abalone farms were impacted by a shell parasite that came from South Africa in the mid-1980′s. Working with California Dept of Fish and Game, CA abalone growers were able to completely eradicate this unwanted pest from their farms, and it did not cause any environmental damage or get in to any wild abalone populations. There was no attempted cover up of this activity, and the eradication plan included input not only from CDF&G, but researchers and graduate students from UCSB as well. The researchers published the results of their work.
WS,on the other hand, originated in the Channel Islands, well away from any abalone aquaculture operations. The disease severely depleted the black abalone populations there, and then made its way to the mainland. Over the years it moved up the coast, decimating the black abalone as it went. WS has been a problem for abalone growers, as the bacteria that causes it is now present in the waters off our coast. However, it is absurd to claim that abalone aquaculture is responsible for the presence of this bacteria. Treating the effluent water from farms will not have any impact on the wild abalone populations, as the bacteria exits naturally in the ocean and is not coming from abalone farms.
Thanks for the comments Ray, I misunderstood your website. I assumed the number of shells were related to the number of abalone. Readers have been able to click on the link from the beginning and see the original source for themselves.
A word of advice I give every few months to anonymous said… If you have time to craft a post, come up with a name. It could be Abalone fan, just give us something so we can have a conversation. It also helps to have links if you have evidence.
Judging from the number of web searches and comments that have landed on this page folks take their abalone seriously.