S. Africa Is Prying Abalone Poachers From Their Prey

They carry AK-47 assault rifles. They once firebombed a marine-conservation patrol boat. When authorities in one small town got tough, they stormed the police station. They have even placed a bounty on a police dog that sniffs packages at the Cape Town airport.

What’s all the danger about? Narcotics? Diamonds? Armaments? No, an ear-shaped mollusk, the abalone, that tastes so good--and apparently works such wonders on some men’s sexual performance--that hordes of poachers are striking it rich scraping clean the ocean floor.

“It is mostly going to China and Taiwan, where people are willing to pay a lot of money for it,” said Chris Rossouw of the South African Police Service’s organized-crime unit. “Once people realized there was money in it, the crime syndicates became involved.”

Authorities say the swashbuckling abalone pirates owe some of their good fortune to the shellfish’s decline in faraway California. Dwindling Pacific Ocean supplies and stepped-up law enforcement by the California Department of Fish and Game have helped place a premium on illegal harvests elsewhere.

Police here report that the smuggled abalone typically commands about $35 a pound in Asia; California authorities say the mollusk has been known to fetch as much as $80.

South Africa has become an especially attractive target for greedy poachers and underworld gangs because police, strapped for resources, are only now responding in a big way to the rampant theft. A special police crackdown--dubbed Operation Neptune--has dozens of border officers combing the rugged Atlantic Ocean coastline here, an otherwise tranquil place best known for some of the world’s top whale watching.

Until Recently, Police Were at Disadvantage

Until recently, police were so thinly stretched that poachers were able to outsmart them at every turn. When they did get caught, the fishermen--sometimes in groups of 50 to 100--would overpower their captors or simply buy them off. Not long ago, in the village of Gansbaai, authorities from neighboring communities had to rush to the rescue when poachers threatened “to take by force” booty confiscated by local police.

“Some of the smugglers go around at night to avoid us, but now that we have the manpower and equipment, we are driving by their houses to let them know that we are watching,” said Sgt. Craig Finlay, a commander with Operation Neptune. “We’ve arrested about 100 of these guys since February.”

Nonetheless, poaching of the popular gastropod remains such a lucrative trade that some marine experts predict that South Africa’s abalone population will follow California’s example and be virtually wiped out in the next five years.

The legal commercial abalone harvest in South Africa, which is allocated to certain fishermen through quota permits, is about 1 million pounds annually. A small amount is also set aside for licensed sports divers, who can take four adult shellfish per day during the summer fishing season.

But authorities estimate that at least three times the legal harvest is being plucked from the coastal waters each year.

In California, the once-flourishing abalone population has been so depleted by poachers, sea otters and pollution that the state bans commercial catches. In Southern California, where the problem is the worst, even sports fishing is forbidden. Conservationists recently petitioned to have California’s rarest variety, the white abalone, declared an endangered species.

“Abalone is our No. 1 priority for our enforcement branch statewide and has been that way for three years,” said Frederick Cole, who heads the special operations unit at the California Department of Fish and Game. “We have cooperation from the state legislature and the local courts, and we are looking at further restrictions on sports fishing.”

But as California rallies to safeguard its remaining abalone, the situation only gets worse in South Africa.

The market in illegal abalone was once dominated by a handful of small-time local gangs. But the trade has grown so lucrative in recent years, authorities say, that the number of syndicates has increased tenfold--and many are now based in faraway places such as Hong Kong and Macao and allegedly have links to the notorious Chinese triads.

The crime organizations turn to local divers and fishermen to collect the abalone, while their Asian bosses operate behind the scenes to smuggle the catch out of the country. Witnesses and accomplices are routinely bullied into silence. Police say even local thugs live in fear of the international syndicates.

“We know the cooperation [from other fishermen] in stopping the smugglers in California is brilliant,” Finlay said. “The same is true in Australia. We are only just starting to get that here. Some of the people who cooperate with us have had their boats petrol-bombed.”

Eugene Leroux of the Overberg Commercial Abalone Divers Assn., an organization of 59 professional fishermen that once had exclusive rights to abalone harvesting in this area, said the Asian gangs have become increasingly sophisticated in their poaching.

A new commercial fishing law, enacted last year, broke up the largely white diving association’s monopoly on abalone harvesting by distributing some of its quotas to poor black fishermen. But the Asian syndicates immediately offered large sums of money for the new quotas, enticing many black fishermen to sell before they ever caught their first abalone.

New Law Doesn’t Work as Intended

The move has not only denied the black fishermen steady employment, but it has given some of the poachers a legal claim to dive for the abalone.

“Now they are cleaning out the resource,” Leroux said. “Operation Neptune is helping, but the thing is they catch these guys with the [abalone] instead of keeping them out of the water in the first place.”

Government officials estimate that only 10% of the abalone harvest is consumed in South Africa, with the remainder whisked off to the Far East. The shellfish is a favorite menu item in places such as Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where some varieties are also regarded as aphrodisiacs.

South African police complain that the good eating/good sex combination is a powerful motivator for criminals. Police also say they get little cooperation from Asian authorities, particularly those in Hong Kong, where the South Africans are told that importing of abalone is not a crime so long as the shipment is accompanied by a health certificate.

Because of its relative freshness, the most sought-after abalone is the frozen variety, which authorities say is typically trucked into neighboring Swaziland or Botswana and then flown to Asia within days of being harvested. But since the flights usually pass through Johannesburg, South African police have stepped up enforcement at the international airport there. So far this year, about 5,000 pounds of the illegal mollusks have been confiscated aboard connecting flights.

To get around the detection of frozen abalone, several syndicates are moving into local processing and canning operations. Some are also drying the abalone meat, which reduces the weight by about two-thirds, and then shipping it by overnight courier marked as “dried fruit.” When it arrives in the Far East, the shellfish is soaked in water, and within 24 hours regains most of its original size and shape.

“It is a delicacy and something people think is good for their sex life,” said police Capt. Douglas Roman of the organized-crime unit in Cape Town. “People are desperate. They will do anything to get them.”

Fishermen here are also increasingly desperate as they see the once-abundant sea creatures disappear seemingly overnight, taking the men’s family fortunes and traditions with them.

Leroux, who is skipper of an abalone fishing boat, has spent 33 years working the sea, 28 of them diving for perlemoen, as the shellfish is known in South Africa. His father did much the same. A few years back, his son took over the family business, the third generation of Leroux perlemoen fishermen.

But now, as Leroux contemplates retirement, his son faces a future even more unimaginable. The 26-year-old is looking for a second job to help make ends meet.