The Abalone of Morro Bay

The Abalone of Morro Bay. . , The Abalone Capital of the World , For a couple decades in the mid-twentieth century, Morro Bay was widely known as "The Abalone Capital of the World." The city's name was splashed across restaurant menus up and down the West Coast., Millions of pounds of mostly red abalone (haliotis rufescens) were landed and processed in Morro Bay, including at the old 4 Crabs location at 945 Embarcadero. The Central Coast abalone industry was composed of many small family businesses that ran the boats, dove, harvested, processed and sold abalone. , Unfortunately Morro Bay went from Capital to collapse quickly in the late 1960s with the last commercial landing in 1980. Younger divers moved to Santa Barbara for work, while many of the older divers quit and remained here. Their memories and names are still honored here., Abalone Fishing Near Morro Bay , Native Americans harvested abalone along the CA coast for thousands of years. They were followed by immigrant Chinese who began taking near-shore abalone in about 1850. They were delighted to find abalone which they dried and exported back to China since most people living here had no interest in it!, Around 1900, Japanese immigrants began to supplant the Chinese. Gennosuke Kodani introduced heavy diving gear supplied with compressed air from the surface in 1897, so they were able to dive deeper and take more abalone., Native and European American families began commercial abalone fishing in about 1930 using heavy gear that might weight a 100 pounds. They used boats as diving platforms, often 30 feet or less with an open design or small cabin. These boats had a 3-man crew with a diver, tender, and boat operator that worked seamlessly together to keep the diver safe and diving air line free from the propeller that could cut or wrap the line around the propeller shaft. Even with care and experience, more than one diver lost his life when his air line was cut. This was not a business for the faint of heart. , Why Did the Abalone Population Crash? , Morro Bay residents still fight over this question. However some believe that the abalone industry was overfished. There is good evidence that Southern sea otters were the proximate cause of the final decline, even if fishing did have some impact. Many studies have established the correlation between an increased number of sea otters in an area with a rapid decline in abalone., Red abalone still exist in cold coastal waters. In some areas, their number is increasing, and it is possible commercial abalone fishing will return. However, this will not happen if there is a large population of sea otters nearby., The Gifts of the Abalone Industry , Commercial abalone fishing is gone from Morro Bay, and probably forever. We have the stories of grit and courage, and we still enjoy the beauty of the shells. , Fishermen and divers who passed through Morro Bay made many gifts to the world of diving in better techniques and technologies. An example was the husband and wife team Al and Norma Hanson. Al created helmets with phones and better safety gear like the "bail out bottle" with compressed air that could get divers to the surface in emergencies. Norma was the first woman diver to be admitted to the Los Angeles Pile Drivers Union and a communications star., The age of the abalone is gone from Morro Bay, but it has left an indelible imprint., (sidebar:), Explore the Hidden History of Morro Bay , The Hidden History Project tells stories of Morro Bay's past, often revealing truths that are right in front of our eyes if we only knew what to look for. , Discover additional interpretive panels with descriptive Hidden History stories of Morro Bay at various locations throughout the city.