What is this book about?

Abalone chronicles the remarkable story of our human relationship with an animal that we've cherished for its iridescent shell and savory meat for millennia but that, in recent times, has become imperiled, and now faces enormous threats.

Not long ago, abalone were beloved icons of California coast culture and cuisine. Many coast dwellers still have fond memories of hunting for abalone and the festive beach barbecues and parties that ensued. Of course, indigenous Californians were the first to value abalone for food, tools, adornment, and far more. Different abalone species lived in intertidal, nearshore, and deeper water marine habitats, and if you start looking closely, you can see vestiges of their glittering shells in many places. But today, many up-and-coming Californians have never even heard of abalone, and some species now face the risk of extinction.

Ultimately, my book explores how we've allowed the fate of such cherished animals to become so precarious during our time. I unearthed colorful, joyful, and painful stories that speak directly to the hard questions we face in this age of extinctions — how we can let animals we cherish become so imperiled? And how can we bring them back?

What inspired you to start work on Abalone?

It was a confluence of several currents. I'd became interested in food history, heritage foods linked to specific places, and the way that Americans have become disconnected from the source of their foods. But as an environmental historian, I knew, too, that the wild animals we eat—wild foods—are particularly vulnerable to being consumed into oblivion.

Most important, I found an abalone shell along the Big Sur coast, and it inspired me. It was so brilliant and so beautiful, I wanted to know more about the animal that made it. I soon came to realize that abalone had a rich cultural history—as animals valued for their meat and shells—but also a fascinating ecological history—as animals that became profoundly vulnerable to overfishing but also to other larger environmental threats facing all marine life today.

When I first started to learn about the history of abalone, I encountered mostly nostalgia for past times when the shellfish were abundant—when people could hunt and eat them with abandon—yet I realized there was a far more important story that needed to be told that integrated culture and ecology. Understanding a fuller history of abalone opens the door to understanding so much more about our relationship with the marine environment of the Pacific Coast—and in particular, what we need to know to be better stewards of the ocean and marine life today.

What will readers get from the book?

Readers will learn about the remarkable role that abalone have played in California culture and the environment for millennia. Starting at least 13,000 years ago, ancient shells—remnants of an abalone dinner—are one of the earliest signs of human habitation on the Pacific coast. From that point on, through the shell middens and cultural stories we know indigenous Californians used, traded, and valued abalone before colonization for tools, adornment, and spiritual practices—and persist in valuing them to this day. With European exploration and colonization, California abalone came to play new roles as commodities in the emerging global economy, and then with the rise of resort culture and eventually skin diving, as a cultural icon that became part of the state's carefree identity. I loved finding stories about how people enjoyed abalone.

Readers will also learn about the history of fishery management and marine science. I found it fascinating to learn about how biologists studied the abalone through time, so readers will get a real sense for how scientific understanding unfolds—especially with challenges of research in the ocean environment. People often think of science as a body of knowledge, but more truly, it's a process of discovery—of asking questions and observing closely to find answers. Yet it can become complicated by challenges of funding, contentious fishery politics—and increasingly—ever-changing baseline of environmental conditions. I became particularly interested in the history of kelp forest ecology and the story of the biologists who lived through the decline of abalone and ultimately realized the need to turn things around—to close the fishery and start recovering and restoring the animals. They couldn't do it themselves—and so the story of abalone reveals the need for citizen engagement and the challenges of conserving marine life, especially those animals used as foods.

Why is knowing the history of a shellfish relevant today?

The book reveals the profound consequences of misperceiving history—of how we can literally misunderstand reality if we don't have our history right. In the case of abalone, the Euro-Americans who colonized California misperceived the animals' super-abundance as a sign of inherent fecundity rather than as the result of a brutal history that had nearly annihilated the sea otter and decimated native people decades earlier.

As a result, there arose a persistent belief in abalone abundance as a natural state of affairs, with fishermen and early fishery managers believing that continually taking millions of animals was sustainable, as long as size limits were followed. Not until sea otters rebounded in the 1950s and scientists came to understand El Niños as a recurring phenomenon did more people begin to grasp the complex dynamics that affected abalone and other marine animals in kelp forests ecosystems. But still, it was difficult for the managing agency, the California Department of Fish and Game (now Department of Fish and Wildlife), to shift gears. Ultimately, they were unable to restrict the abalone fishery in a meaningful way, until it was too late. To me, the lesson is clear. We simply can't wait until after animals decline to low levels to try to conserve them.

As we face new challenges with scientists warning of increasingly frequent marine heat waves, history helps us to understand the ways that environmental fluctuations have and will continue to affect the persistence of marine animals. Warming waters and intense storms can wipe out the kelp forests that provide food and habitat for abalone and other fish and invertebrates. Elevated temperatures also affect the ability of animals that broadcast their gametes into seawater to reproduce, and warmer water can increase the likelihood of marine diseases. Fishing on top of these stresses can be a recipe for disaster. All these troubling trends have already afflicted abalone, and so we need to connect the dots, learn from the past, and be cautious, especially with the animals we fish and use as foods.

What are some of the most surprising and interesting things you learned about abalone and abalone history?

There were so many surprising and interesting things I learned! As I mentioned, I was drawn to the beauty of abalone shells. It's almost as if the animal distills the beauty of the ocean's water and captures it in its shell! I was intrigued to find out that the shell’s brilliant, freewheeling iridescence derives from its highly ordered micro-structure of tiny calcium-aragonite bricks.

I was amazed to learn that abalone play important roles in their respective ecosystems. They primarily eat drift kelp—the tiny bits of kelp that tear free—so they basically survive on what might considered to be “crumbs” of the kelp forest. They also hold space on the surface of reefs; when there are too few abalone, creatures like tubeworms or urchins can take over, making it impossible for the next generations of abalone to settle and thrive.

I was fascinated to learn about some of the many ways that indigenous Californians, up and down the coast and far into the interior, used and cherished abalone shells in the 13,000 years before Euro-Americans showed up and how their significance to Native people persists. I was interested to learn that on the North Coast, native people value not only the way the shells glimmer but also how they rattle or "sing" when worn in ceremonial regalia.

I was surprised to learn that Euro-American colonizers didn't recognize the succulence of abalone meat right away. In fact, owing to racial, prejudice, many disparaged the shellfish as a "queer food" of Chinese immigrants, who had started fishing commercially and exporting dried abalone during the Gold Rush. Slowly with the rise of resort culture, coastal hotels started to serve abalone in chowder, like New England's famous clam chowder. But not until one of California's first celebrity chefs began to actively promote the shellfish at the Panama-Pacific Expo in 1913 did abalone fillets and steaks gain stature in California cuisine.

I was surprised and somewhat dismayed to learn that citizens had tried, again and again—for over 100 years—to conserve California's abalone. One early biologist recommended abalone reserves, akin to modern marine reserves, back in 1913, but to no avail. At various times, recreational foragers and divers organized to conserve abalone so that future Californians could have the chance to hunt for the shellfish. The most dramatic and contentious effort in recent times was in 1997, when sport divers organized to press California's Fish and Game Commission to shut the state's commercial fishery. The closure gave abalone a long-overdue reprieve, but because the animals are slow-growing and don't always get a chance to reproduce successfully with fluctuating environmental conditions, it can take a very long time for populations to recover. In some few places in southern California, I've heard from some divers, there may now be small signs of rebound for some species, which is hopeful. But it underscores the risks of fishing to the edge, when marine animals face so many other growing risks.

I was delighted to learn how abalone became a cultural icon, inspiring the writers and poets of the Carmel Colony to come up with a playful jingle they called the "Abalone Song," to pass time while pounding the shellfish.

I found it extremely interesting to learn that for nearly 100 years, state fishery managers and fishermen did not realize that the prevalence of abalone was not natural. It took the return of the sea otters on the central coast to reveal that abalone abundance was a windfall from the brutal fur trade and decimation of native peoples in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As a result, they did not really understand abalones' fundamental biology and ecology, which made it difficult to manage the fishery. Even today, I think it's hard for people to re-envision what natural marine ecosystems might look like, given the impacts from pollution, changing climate, and fishing.

I was surprised by the way that commercial and sport fishermen fought over abalone for decades—and how management of the shellfish focused primarily on how to accommodate these two groups and maximize their take of the shellfish. Not until relatively recently has there has been any consideration that broader constituencies might be concerned for the future of abalone. If we want to these animals to persist into the future, it's imperative that the state fish and wildlife agency take more perspectives, especially those of indigenous Californians, into account. I think it’s also important to consider the role of the animals in their ecosystems as well as the intrinsic and moral value of having these animals survive together with us into the future.

I was also surprised to learn that even as abalones' vulnerability became known, it was extremely difficult to close the commercial fishery because, understandably, no one wanted to hurt the livelihoods of fishermen. One can only wonder, if greater precaution had been taken earlier, perhaps the outcome might have been different. But even in northern California, where the sport fishery had been tightly managed, it was a "perfect storm" of environmental stresses that ultimately decimated the red abalone, underscoring the vulnerability of these and other marine animals.

It was sobering to realize how difficult it is to recover an endangered species—even mollusks like abalone—in part because so little is still known about the animals. But I was excited to learn how marine biologists developed a plan to recover white abalone, worked methodically to overcome many hurdles they encountered, and just last year (in fall of 2019) outplanted captive-raised baby white abalone for the first time. Hopefully, their research and efforts can inform recovery of other abalone and invertebrate species into the future.