South Africa | Abalone poaching surges off coast, driven by poverty and organized crime
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Poverty and crime in South Africa are driving a surge in the illegal harvesting off its shores of the abalone, a large sea snail coveted as a delicacy in some parts of Asia, a report said on Tuesday.
The report, by TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network, found that the region’s abalone population is on the verge of collapse, with an estimated 96 million abalone illegally harvested between 2000 and 2016.