Abalone: Santa Cruz Island

Abalone: Santa Cruz Island

Ah Poy

According to Helen Caire: “In the 1860s, before the Santa Cruz Island Company purchased Santa Cruz Island, the Chinese were fishing at Forney’s, Prisoners’, Scorpion, and China harbors.” [1993:139]. The industrious Chinese were successful harvesters and, by 1879, had annual catches in excess of four million pounds in California.

Chinese merchants operating in Santa Barbara’s Chinatown on Canon Perdido Street included the Sing Chung Company, Sun Lung and Company, and You Kee. The Chinese abalone industry peaked on Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and San Clemente islands from 1892 to 1895. In 1900, however, county ordinances were passed that made it illegal to gather abalones from less than twenty feet of water. The regulations completely halted their commercial abalone operations. In 1909 as the result of a Chinese boycott of abalones from Japan, the price for American-caught abalone soared more than 100 per cent. As the shallow water abalone populations were depleted, Japanese divers moved in and took over the industry. Today archaeological excavations have revealed opium tins and Chinese porcelain pieces, often in association with abalone shells, from former camp areas. Seven of the eight California Channel Islands have “Chinese” places names, including Chinese Harbor, China Camp, Chinese Point, and China Canyon. Many references speculate such names originated from days when Yankee clippers landed Chinese on the islands awaiting a chance to smuggle them over to the mainland. Chinese named in the Channel Islands pursuits include:

• AH POY [Soon Poy] (fl. 1900-1909) of Santa Barbara had a contract to gather abalone on Santa Cruz Island after the turn of the century. According to Helen Caire: “What the owners got is indicated by a letter in existence written to the Caire Co. in 1908, by Ah Poy of Santa Barbara, asking to renew his old contract at Santa Cruz Island, in the same terms as previously, one hundred fifty pounds out of every one thousand pounds that are gathered both of meats and shells.” (Caire 1993).

In the News~

September 30, 1856 [SDU]: “At 7:30 P.M., September 28th, below Monterey, during a thick fog, [a steamer] ran down the schooner Frances Skiddy, of 17-1/2 tons. The Captain, Hugh Robertson, was drowned. The schooner was bound to Santa Cruz Island with a cargo of provisions for the Chinese fishery, and had on board four Chinese passengers, who were all saved. One Chinaman had his shoulder broken, but is doing well. The steamer was on her usual course, with her lights burning. The crew of the schooner report that they heard the steamer for some minutes before striking, but became bewildered, and the Captain ordered the helm put down, which kept the schooner directly in the steamer’s track, without showing a light until nearly under her bows, when it was too late to prevent the catastrophe. The names of the persons saved are Captain Eastman of the sloop Marin; James Wilson, James Hardy, John Bathgate, and four Chinamen.”

October 18, 1862 [SFDEB]: “Importations. Santa Cruz Island per Ann G. Doyle — 20 bbls. tallow, 2 bales wool, 5 bales skins, 30 sacks abalones.”

1892-1895 U.S. Commission of Fish & Fisheries Report: “The Chinese have a monopoly in the abalone fishery, and in preparing, eating, and marketing of the dried abalones. The meat and shells are handled by a Chinese merchant at Santa Barbara and by him forwarded to other Chinese at San Francisco, where, having supplied any local demand for dried abalone from the islands of Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel and San Clemente.”

July 26, 1905 [LAT/SB]: “Captain Merry of the auxiliary yacht Vishnu, was getting his craft ready for a fishing party when she was boarded by three men. ‘Your boat is under our orders,’ said one of them. ‘No she isn’t,’ replied the captain. ‘I am just waiting for a party of fishermen. I can take you out tomorrow.’ ‘No you won’t. You will take us out right now, and stay as long as we desire,’ and the speaker displayed a badge on his coat that showed him to be a government official of the Immigration Department, and added that if the boat did not sail under his orders at once, the captain would be prosecuted. That was early last Saturday morning, and nothing was seen of the Vishnu or her crew until yesterday afternoon, when they sailed into port after having sailed and searched over 400 miles, night and day. Every nook and corner of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Anacapa islands were explored, every boat was overtaken and examined carefully and island fishermen were carefully questioned. Captain Merry’s unwelcome crew were Emil Engelike, John Canfield and T. J. Johnson of San Diego, all officers of the Federal Government on a warm trail after a Chinese smuggler…”

2004 [Nature Conservancy Issue 4]: Abalone on the move. Black abalone once filled rocky crevices along intertidal areas from Central California to Baja Mexico. But the population of dark, soap dish sized marine snails with iridescent interior shells dropped to near extinction in the 1980s and 90s. A history of harvest, coupled with a surge in a disease called withering syndrome that impairs their ability to attach to rocks, wiped out about 0 to 100% of the mollusks in Southern California. Since the disease has abated, the snails, which consume kelp and algal detritus from oceans and provide food for otters, are making a comeback, thanks to work by The Nature Conservancy and its partners. In March 2023, crews plucked about 250 healthy adult abalone from ecovering populations at TNC's Santa Cruz Island preserve and translocated then to the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve, another TNC property along the Southern California Coast where populations were struggling.