Abalone are treasured -- nearly to extinction
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 - 14:42
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The authorities popped him near the docks in Port Angeles. On a March afternoon in 1994, a sleek fishing boat -- not-so-subtly named the Abalone Made -- came ashore after puttering around Freshwater Bay. The waiting cops nabbed the captain and seized his contraband: 188 specimens of a rare Puget Sound mollusk, the pinto abalone, a strange, fist-sized snail stuffed in algae-encrusted shells.