MANY PEOPLE HAVE never eaten—or even heard of—red abalone, a species of sea snail that lives suctioned onto boulders and feeds on the lush kelp forests of Northern California. Abalone is a much-sought-after delicacy with a sweet, delicate flavor similar to a sea scallop, say those who’ve tried it.

“For people who think they don’t like fish…it’s amazing to see their eyes just sparkle when they take a bite and go ‘this is absolutely incredible,’” says Joe Cresalia, a recreational diver who lives just north of San Francisco. “And you know before they took the bite, they were almost afraid to take a bite.”

But as marine heat waves, ocean acidification, habitat loss, and overfishing shrink the red abalone fishery, the sweet delicacy is at risk of permanently losing its food source: the kelp forests.

“There’s a hole in our lives the size of a really good-sized abalone. We miss that,” says Cresalia.

Human influence takes a toll
The abalone was first harvested by the Native Americans, and later popularized when the first abalone fishery was established in the early 20th century. The fishery reached peak popularity during the 1950s and 1960s. Commercial fishers as well as divers from around the world traveled to the California coast to dive into lush kelp forests and pry snails off their rocks.

By 1997, too few snails remained to support commercial catches, and the fishery was closed. Only recreational divers like Cresalia were permitted to catch abalone.

Theoretically, that closure should have allowed the stressed populations to recover. They might have, were California’s oceans not quietly changing.

“Abalone are very much an indicator of the health of the kelp forest. They’re the canary in the coal mine for us because they’re very sensitive to any changes in food abundance,” says Laura Rodgers-Bennett of the California Department of Fish and wildlife. “They’re not able to switch over and eat meat or other kinds of tissues, so when their numbers go down, we know there’s something wrong in the kelp forest.”

A disastrous chain of events
Like a line of falling dominoes, a series of events led to intense pressure on abalone populations.

In 2011, a toxic algal bloom off the Sonoma coast killed off many of the local marine invertebrates, including abalone. Then came the sea star wasting disease of 2013, which got rid of many of the predatory sea stars responsible for keeping sea urchin populations under control.

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