Abalone Problems

News Shorts

Posted: November 27, 2023

An employee of the HIK Abalone farm holds an abalone snail near Hawston, South Africa. (AP/Jerome Delay)
A boat of abalone poachers approaches Dyer Island off the coast of Gansbaai, South Africa. (Courtesy of Community Against Abalone Poaching via AP)
A customer eats abalone from South Africa in Hong Kong. (AP/Louise Delmotte)
Raphael Fisher poses outside his home in Hawston, South Africa. (AP/Jerome Delay)
An employee checks tanks at the HIK Abalone farm near Hawston, South Africa. (AP/Jerome Delay)
Abalone swim at the HIK Abalone farm near Hawston, South Africa. (AP/Jerome Delay)

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People in east Asia love to eat South African abalone (a-buh-LONE-ee). But demand for the fist-sized sea snail causes problems in fishing communities along Africa’s southern coast.

Raphael Fisher was born into a fishing family in Hawston, South Africa. Every boy in town wanted to be an abalone fisher, he says.

But over the last three decades, poachers swept up every snail they could find. They sell them for lots of money.

The South African abalone is endangered. Some fishers took too many. Others poach the snails—taking them illegally. Now there are fewer snails than ever before.

At first, the South African government banned abalone fishing completely. Now strict rules give some people, like Mr. Fisher, permission to catch a small number each year.

Many traditional fishers turned to poaching. The ban put them out of business. They needed to feed their families. Mr. Fisher faced that temptation too.

Danie Keet works with the Community Against Abalone Poaching group. He has watched abalone poaching for 15 years. Gangs in pickup trucks arrive in broad daylight. Divers pry abalone off reefs. Runners hide them in dunes for others to transport. Lookouts watch for police.

“In the beginning, [poachers] used to dive at night a lot. That changed as they noticed that they can just get away with it,” Mr. Keet says. Police can’t patrol the whole coast.

Customers want more and more of the tasty treat. Instead of catching wild abalone, some people farm the sea snails.

A company called HIK Abalone has around 13 million abalone at two farms. Thousands of the creatures—from tiny specks to hand-sized mollusks—swim in rows of open-top tanks. Later, they are shipped to Hong Kong.

Mr. Fisher now works at the HIK farm. He still catches his abalone quota. But he fishes only part time. He scans the sky and the sea as his father did. He checks the weather to decide whether he can take his boat out on weekends. Even if he can’t catch much abalone, fishing is in his blood.

Pray that poachers will turn to honest work. (Ephesians 4:28) Ask God to provide new ways to make a living for fishers who were put out of business.