Haliotis rufescens (the Red Abalone), California's State Mollusk

The members of the San Diego Shell Club support the petition to make the red abalone, Haliotis rufescens, California’s state mollusk. Of the many endemic species along our coast, we believe that red abalone, above all others, warrants this highly honored recognition for many reasons.
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The red abalone is the most common and well recognized mollusk and abalone found in California.

It has been harvested as a food source since prehistoric times by the indigenous people of California as evidenced by the large number of these shells found in Chumash Indian middens of the Northern Channel Islands dating back 7,500 years.
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The image on the left, circa 1903, is of a Japanese Camp in Monterey Bay showing the abalone drying racks they used to cure the abalone  before packaging and sale.

Since that time, it has become rooted in California’s history beginning in the 1850s when it was fished intertidally by Chinese-Americans, and in the early 1900s when Japanese-Americans began free diving for red abalone and later as hard-hat divers. In the mid-1950s, harvesting of abalone became a major component of California’s fishing industry through 1997.
The image on the left, circa 1933, are a group of workers reclining on a pile of abalone shells from the “Pierce Brothers Company” in Morro Bay who commercially harvested and sold the abalone.

It is California’s over 150 year history with the red abalone that has made this endemic mollusk an iconic symbol of California and an important reason for making it the State marine mollusk.
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Please click the pdf document below to read about our red abalone proposal.
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red-abalone-bill.pdf