Abalone, Overfishing and the Tragedy of the Commons

I went diving for abalone (a large, tasty mollusk) in the waters off the rocky coast of Northern California this past Labor Day weekend. It was a first for me and the experience was amazing. The ocean here is a frigid 55 °F, requiring thick full-body wetsuits, hoods and booties. These wetsuits are extremely buoyant and a diver has to wear weights (20 lbs or so) if he hopes to breach the surface. Abalone hang on the underside of rocks at depths of approximately 5 – 30 feet, securely fastened with a suction cup-like foot, quietly – and very slowly – munching kelp.

Abalone in cooler (left). Thinly sliced ab meat seasoned with pepper, ready to cook.

Diving for abalone here is a challenge, due to both the physical requirements and Department of Fish and Game regulations. Only free diving is allowed (no scuba) and a stiff fine is exacted on divers taking juvenile abalone – those measuring less than 7-inches across. The water can be murky, at 10 ft the bottom is difficult to see and at 20 ft rubbery kelp strands descending into the grey abyss provide the only contrast. To reach the ocean floor, peer into a dark crevice, locate an abalone, measure it and pry it from the rock using an abalone iron in a single breath – and then reach the surface – is not for the faint of heart.

It’s rare one gets a second chance at an abalone. Upon detecting danger the giant snail clamps its shell against the rock, forming an impenetrable bond. Even the abalone iron – a steel trowel-like tool – is useless on an alerted specimen. The sport of ab’ diving is thrilling and veteran divers push themselves to dive deeper and stay down longer looking for a monsters in the hidden coves. A 10-incher is a trophy in Sonoma and Mendocino counties and many are mounted on local bait shop walls, proudly displayed like the horns of a great stag.

However, for all its sporting nature there are also more tragic reasons why abalone diving is a challenge in California. Through most of the 20^th century commercial fishers and recreational divers using scuba gear aggressively
harvested the species to the point where, in 1997, the industry collapsed.

After going through a series of ups and downs in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the commercial abalone industry really took off during WWII, in part to supply food for the war effort. At its height in 1957 over 5 million pounds were extracted from the California coast. Catch levels were stable for most of the 50s and 60s but the species wasn’t replenishing fast enough and landings began to decline rapidly in the late 1960s.

The abalone is a slow growing creature; it takes several years to reach sexual maturity and can take 12 years to reach today’s legal size. They are also broadcast spawners; males and females reproduce by shooting semen and eggs into the water, hoping for a fertile collision. This requires a relatively high population density for the species to procreate.

By the 1970s, thinning ranks meant commercial operators were putting in more effort to harvest far fewer abalones. However, reduced catches were more than offset by sharply rising prices as demand for the succulent meat expanded in China and Japan. As the forces of both supply and demand worked to drive exponential price growth commercial fishers scoured the coastal waters for every last abalone.

This practice continued until 1997 when, after watching catches decline by 95% from peak years, California closed the commercial abalone industry and limited sport fishing to north of the San Francisco Bay.

Source: Kaepov, 2000 "Serial depletion and the collapse of the California abalone"

The collapse of the California abalone is part of a larger, global overfishing problem. It is estimated that large fish populations dropped by 90% between 1950 and 2003 as global demand increased and commercial fishing became more sophisticated. In economics we call this sacking of the open ocean a tragedy of the commons – a concept that explains how shared resources are eventually destroyed by people acting in their own short-term self interest despite the fact that these same people would benefit by managing these resources for long-term sustainability.

In California, for example, taking fewer abalones each year would have been better than driving the population to the verge of extinction and then banning the practice. Now we wait to see if our abalone stocks bounce back and for some species, like the white abalone, the future is particularly bleak.

Overfishing on the open ocean is indeed a tragedy but what happened in California is far more reprehensible. Commons problems only exist in the absence of a functioning government body that can create and enforce policies to ensure responsible consumption of a common resource. On the high seas there are few if any agreements to regulate fishing and resources there are regarded with a “take what you can get before it’s gone” mentality.

Here in the Golden State our abalones live less than a mile off the coast, well within the Government’s domain, and we had every opportunity to regulate the industry in a sustainable manner. In Southern California we utterly failed in this responsibility.

We have done better in Northern California where sensible policies manage the species. Abalone season is open for a limited time, from April – November (skipping July), and requires a special license that permits divers three abalone per day and 24 per season.

Despite the positive steps we have taken even the best designed policies will be ineffective if not properly enforced.  Poachers take millions of dollars of illegally caught abalone from California’s shores every year and with hundreds of miles of coastline, catching them is often a fleeting task. Abalone can fetch $100 a piece on the black market where they eventually find their way into restaurant appetizers and soups. Higher prices has also led to more aggressive poaching and harvesting abroad (abalone are found in much of the world’s cold oceans).

Today most of the demand for abalone comes from Asia, especially China where its burgeoning population, together with Taiwan, consumes the vast majority of the world’s catch. Strong demand along with a falling supply of wild abalone has helped to bud an industry in farm raised abalone which has grown rapidly over the last decade and now accounts for more than 80% of global supply. Between 2001 and 2008 production of farm raised abalone grew by more than 500%.

Source: FAO

California had 13 farms in 2007, producing several hundred tons annually. However, China and Taiwan are by far the biggest players, churning out nearly 90% of the global output of 49,000 metric tons. Farming, or aquaculture as it’s often refereed to, helps alleviate pressure on wild stocks, brings supply closer in line with demand are reduces the incentives to poaching.

Growth in the abalone aquaculture industry mirrors a larger, global trend toward farm raised seafood. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that half of the world's food fish now comes from farms. Aquaculture helps meet the demands of our growing population which is set to increase by 50% to 9 billion people over the next 40 years. It also reduces stress on the oceans which face unprecedented challenges from overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction and global warming.

All data from FAO unless otherwise noted.