Good News and Bad News for Lovers of the Abalone

For abalone lovers, the good news is that abalone season is open. The bad news is that California’s abalone population is declining. As a result, the 10-month season has been reduced to seven and the daily bag limit on the delectable mollusk has been cut in half.

Abalones, known worldwide for their delicious taste, inhabit the rocky ocean bottoms of California. Technically they are large, marine snails that can be found anywhere from tide pool depth to 200 feet underwater. Most are found in depths from 20 to 60 feet, according to Dave Parker, marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

But don’t expect to strap on your scuba gear and head for the beach in Orange County. Most of our coastline is strictly off limits. Abalone cannot be taken anywhere on the mainland from Palos Verdes to Dana Point. That means that most Orange County abalone divers, like Patrick Huston of Irvine, head to Santa Catalina or San Clemente islands.

“I usually go abalone diving every weekend during the season,” says Huston, a training director for In-Depth Scuba. Huston even leads abalone dive trips to Catalina and teaches his students how to do everything from abalone hunting to abalone cooking.

You can take abalone any time throughout the open season, March 1 through Sept. 30. The bag limit is two abalone per day per person--down from the old limit of four. The reduction in bag limit and season length came following recommendations from Fish and Game biologists and the Abalone Advisory Committee and was supported by the National Park Service and recreational diving groups, all of whom have noticed a decline in abalone in many areas of Southern California.

“The decline is the result of a combination of things,” Parker said. “No one has it nailed down entirely. But lots of harvesting (both commercial and sport), habitat changes, development on the mainland, increased siltation--all these things contribute to the decline.”

Last year about 273,000 abalone were taken commercially, according to Parker. Although he has no current figure on abalone take by recreational divers, he says the “old figures show that about 20,000 to 30,000 were harvested in a year.”

To increase the abalone population, the Department of Fish and Game has experimented with “reseeding,” placing small, hatchery raised abalone in areas where abalones have declined. “We also tried translocation of adult abalones,” Parker says, “taking adult abalones from an area of abundance to an area of low abundance.”

A recent project involved transplanting some abalone from Santa Barbara Island to the Laguna Beach area. However, Parker says the reseeding and transplanting are costly. “Evidence shows that half or more did not survive for even a year,” he says.

To further protect the declining abalone population, the state has reduced the number of commercial abalone permits it issues each year. Only 130 permits are currently issued, down from more than 400 permits in the late 1960s and 300 permits in the late 1970s, according to Parker. All this means that today fewer abalones are making it to the marketplace. That’s why commercial abalones currently cost about $30 a pound, Parker says.

If you want to beat the high cost by diving for abalone, Parker said, you must have a valid California fishing license. He suggests that you also learn how to identify the different species because size requirements vary from species to species. Legal sizes are 7 inches for red abalone; 6 inches for pink, green and white abalone; 5 inches for black abalone and 4 inches for all other species.

The most common abalone found in the Catalina area, according to abalone diver Huston, is the green abalone, which lives in water from 20 to 40 feet deep. Black abalones live at shallower depths and are easiest to catch. Some can even be picked up off rocky shores during minus tides. White abalones live at deeper depths and are seldom found. As Huston says, “You hear about white abalones, but you never see them.”

Abalones attach themselves to rocks by means of a huge suction foot which prevents them from being dislodged easily. When an abalone is alarmed, it clamps down and you can’t remove it without a tool. Divers use an abalone iron, a flat sort of pry bar that legally can measure no more than 36 inches. It is illegal to use any type of knife, screwdriver, pointed or sharp object.

“This is designed to prevent as much as possible the accidental injury to abalones which have to be replaced because they are not large enough,” Parker said. “Abalones, when injured, do not have a good chance of surviving.”