In Western Canada, Abalone Recovery Creates New Opportunity for Indigenous Management – Pew
February 4, 2025
Summit highlights cultural importance of mollusk to Haida people
Northern abalone, or gálgahl’yaan in the Skidegate Haida language, have long been an important cultural symbol to the Indigenous community of Haida Gwaii, an archipelago 450 miles northwest of Vancouver inhabited by the Haida people for more than 10,000 years. Haida treasure northern abalone for its delicate taste, iridescent shell, and the memories the mollusk stirs for locals who grew up collecting it along the shore’s intertidal zones.
But after generations of effective local stewardship practices, the species collapsed in Haida Gwaii in the late 1980s because of heavy commercial overfishing. Even after the Canadian government banned fishing of the species nationwide in 1990, poaching continued, leading fisheries officials to declare it “threatened” in 2000 and “endangered” in 2009.
Over recent years though, monitoring efforts have revealed promising signs of abalone recovery near Haida Gwaii. This prompted Daniel Okamoto, an assistant professor of global change biology at the University of California, Berkeley, to organize a summit called “People Working Together to Take Care of Abalone.” Okamoto is also a 2022 Pew marine fellow.
