Black Abalone - Human Uses

Human Uses

Humans have harvested black abalones along the California Coast for at least 10,000 years. On San Miguel Island, archaeological evidence shows that the Island Chumash people and their ancestors ate black abalone for millennia and also used the shells to make fishhooks, beads, and ornaments. After the Chumash and other California Indians were devastated by European diseases, and sea otters were nearly eradicated from California waters by the historic fur trade, black abalone populations rebounded and attracted an intensive intertidal fishery conducted primarily by Chinese immigrants from the 1850s to about 1900.