Abalone Diving on the California Coast

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Abalones are marine snails from the family Haliotidae. This family of shellfish is comprised of 56 recognized species worldwide and eight known species in California. The Native Peoples of California fished and dove for abalone for thousands of years. Chinese immigrants first arrived in California around 1850 to work in the goldfields and on the railroads. Some found their way to Monterey and discovered an abundance of large red abalone that nobody was using. By the mid-1890s, Japanese fishermen had also discovered this rich abundance of abalone. Soon, the Japanese introduced helmet diving technology to the fishery. In 1908, a German restaurateur in Monterey began slicing abalone into steaks. Soon, men from the Azores and elsewhere started fishing abalone along the Central Coast of California. By the 1950s, there were hundreds of people and families fishing this delicacy commercially and thousands more fishing for recreation and subsistence. Steven L. Rebuck grew up in the abalone fishery and served as the abalone technical consultant to the Southern Sea Otter Recovery Team from 1993 to 2004. Christopher Rebuck, a software development manager, is a native Californian and Stevens oldest son. He began surfing and hunting abalone at the age of five. Tim Thomas is the former historian and curator of the Monterey Maritime Museum. He authored The Abalone King of Monterey: Pop Ernest Doelter, Pioneering Japanese Fishermen & the Culinary Classic that Saved an Industry with The History Press in 2013.