Critically Endangered
Haliotis cracherodii
Haliotis cracherodii
Haliotis cracherodii is a gastropod in the family Haliotidae (order Lepetellida), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The coloration is dark brown, dark green, dark blue or almost black. The silvery interior of the shell shows a pale pinkish and greenish iridescence. The exterior of the shell is smoother than most abalone, or may have low obsolete coarse spiral lirae and lines of growth.
The black abalone's shell length can reach a maximum of 20 cm (7.9 in), being typically 10–14 cm (3.9–5.5 in) long.
Range and habitat
Black abalone can be found along the Pacific coast of the United States from Mendocino County, California to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California, Mexico. Prehistoric distribution has been confirmed along much of this range from archaeological recovery at a variety of Pacific coastal Native American sites. The subspecies Haliotis cracherodii californiensis is found around Guadalupe Island, off Baja California (Mexico).
The depleted stocks of black abalone were further reduced by withering syndrome, first discovered in 1985, when commercial fishermen reported large numbers of empty shells and dying abalone on the shores of several of the Californian Channel Islands (among them the islands of Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, San Miguel, and San Clemente). The disease spread from the Channel Islands to the mainland coast in 1992, where it devastated most populations in warmer waters south of Point Conception or in locally warmer waters further north.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
Spawning occurs in spring and early summer. Occasionally, a second spawn occurs in the fall. Black abalone are broadcast spawners, and successful spawning requires that individuals be grouped closely together.
Juveniles do not tend to disperse great distances, and current populations of black abalone are generally composed of individuals that were spawned locally. Black abalone are herbivorous gastropods, and feed mostly on drift algae and kelp.
In crisis
This used to be the most abundant large marine mollusk on the west coast of North America, but now, because of overfishing and the withering syndrome, it has much declined in population and the IUCN Red List has classed the black abalone as Critically Endangered. Black abalone are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List as Critically Endangered (CR A4e). National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) designated the black abalone as a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act (64 FR 33466).
On January 11, 2008, NMFS completed their status review of the species and proposed that it be listed as endangered. Black abalone were listed as endangered on January 14, 2009.
Haliotis cracherodii is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Haliotis cracherodii, Wikidata item Q3096142. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
