
Can the long-lost abalone make a comeback in California? - ilamont
https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-abalone-species-recovery/#nt=liH0promoSmall-7030col2-main
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nradov
Good article but it didn't mention predation from sea otters. At one point
otters were almost hunted to extinction for their fur, and that allowed
abalone populations to flourish. Now sea otters are protected and have stable
populations in some areas so they're back to eating a lot of the abalone.

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organicdude
I think sea otters also play another critical role in California's ecosystem.

Sea urchins eat kelp forests. Sea otters eat sea urchins. Abalone live in kelp
forests.

So I think that when sea otters are alive, then there are more kelp forests,
which leads to more abalone net...even if sea otters are eating abalone.

~~~
nradov
The purple sea urchins which are currently destroying California's kelp
forests are nearly inedible. They aren't the same urchin species that people
eat in sushi. There's very little actual meat under the shell. Sea otters will
only eat them when there's nothing else available.

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jboggan
Not nearly inedible, just not commercially practical for the effort versus the
amount of meat inside. I prefer their taste over the commercially sold reds,
they are sweeter in a wider range of seasons. Purple uni crushed up with soy
sauce is the perfect sauce for sheephead sashimi.

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daotoad
Spread this information to any sushi chefs you know. The opportunity to help
sustainable fisheries by eating puple urchins into obscurity is huge. It's
what our economic system is best at.

~~~
nradov
By "inedible" I didn't mean that purple urchins taste bad necessarily
(acquired taste). It's just that shelling them takes so much work that it's
not worth the effort for chefs. There are millions and millions all along the
coast; convincing a few people to eat them won't make a dent in the
population.

~~~
daotoad
That's what we thought about abalone, dodos, passenger pigeons and buffalo.

Fugu isn't exactly easy to process for eating, but people are willing to pay a
LOT of money for the privilege of eating it.

All you need is the right marketing, and purple urchins will be like hen's
teeth within 10 years.

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dfsegoat
Nitpicking the title:

The article title says "abalone" which can mean any of several species here in
California:

The article is concerned with WHITE abalone making a comeback [2]. These are
"Critically Imperiled" per their species status.

RED abalone are doing fine in California [1] with an "Apparently Secure"
species status, and Cal Dept of Fish & Game will close down fishing when they
need to, in order to allow for recovery.

1 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haliotis_rufescens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haliotis_rufescens)

2 -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haliotis_sorenseni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haliotis_sorenseni)

~~~
dghughes
It's just the title the actual article mentions efforts to repopulate all
types (colours) of abalone.

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cartothemax
If you are looking for a way to make a difference in protecting the abalone.
Ruby for Good has a project that is helping conservation efforts
[https://github.com/rubyforgood/abalone](https://github.com/rubyforgood/abalone)

~~~
smackay
And utterly predictable - and nice to see - there is also
[https://pythonforgood.org/](https://pythonforgood.org/)

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ropiwqefjnpoa
These things sound delicious.

~~~
wil421
They are really tough and you need to pound the crap out of it. There are
Asian restaurants where you can give a wink or secret handshake and get native
abalone. Mostly Chinese IIRC. The Asian poachers were busted on a wildlife
show I’ve watched and they are contributing to the problem. I heard about the
Chinese restaurants in California from food blogs and other shows.

~~~
generatorguy
I saw a Chinese guy getting busted in NorCal he had hidden the abalone in the
hub caps of his car tires. Think old Chevy ones that were like a big bowl.

This is the tragedy of the common resource, people always cheat. There will be
no more fish in the sea. See the Canadian maritime fishing industry for
exhibit A. They Take all the fish until there are no more and then try to find
something new to do maybe, or maybe just do nothing.

~~~
wil421
Yea I’ve seen Chinese fisherman in Florida taking anything they catch. I mean
anything their net or pole catches. Fish, not fish, invertebrate, even oyster
toadfish. I wanted to see how they cook it all but some of the stuff was not
legal.

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Zenst
"Aquilino held up the abalone and looked square into its beady-eyed face.

“You,” she said, “are the future of your species.”"

If Abalone ever evolve, this might be the cause of a whole new religion. /s

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flooo
I was instantaneously thinking about machine learning from UCI data set
repository.

Talking about dangers of AI!

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pier25
At first I thought it was about the Abalone board game and I was very
confused.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_(board_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone_\(board_game\))

