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Pāua

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
Ventral view of the shell of Haliotis iris.
Ventral view of the shell of Haliotis iris.

Pāua is the Māori name given to three New Zealand species of large edible sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs which belong to the family Haliotidae (in which there is only one genus, Haliotis), known in the United States and Australia as abalone, and in the United Kingdom as ormer shells. Pāua has entered English through common use in the New Zealand English dialect, and is both singular and plural, following the grammar rules of its original language.

Discover more about Pāua related topics

Māori language

Māori language

Māori, or te reo Māori, also known as te reo, is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian, it gained recognition as one of New Zealand's official languages in 1987. The number of speakers of the language has declined sharply since 1945, but a Māori-language revitalisation effort has slowed the decline.

New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering 268,021 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). New Zealand is about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.

Species

Species

In biology, a species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined.

Sea snail

Sea snail

Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the absence of a visible shell.

Family (biology)

Family (biology)

Family is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family".

Haliotis

Haliotis

Haliotis, common name abalone, is the only genus in the family Haliotidae.

United States

United States

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Abalone

Abalone

Abalone is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae. Other common names are ear shells, sea ears, and, rarely, muttonfish or muttonshells in parts of Australia, ormer in the UK, perlemoen in South Africa, and paua in New Zealand. Abalones are marine snails. Their taxonomy puts them in the family Haliotidae, which contains only one genus, Haliotis, which once contained six subgenera. These subgenera have become alternative representations of Haliotis. The number of species recognized worldwide ranges between 30 and 130 with over 230 species-level taxa described. The most comprehensive treatment of the family considers 56 species valid, with 18 additional subspecies. The shells of abalones have a low, open spiral structure, and are characterized by several open respiratory pores in a row near the shell's outer edge. The thick inner layer of the shell is composed of nacre (mother-of-pearl), which in many species is highly iridescent, giving rise to a range of strong, changeable colors which make the shells attractive to humans as decorative objects, jewelry, and as a source of colorful mother-of-pearl.

English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots and then most closely related to the Low German and Frisian languages, English is genealogically Germanic. However, its vocabulary also shows major influences from French and Latin, plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse. Speakers of English are called Anglophones.

Species

Main articles: Haliotis iris, Haliotis australis, and Haliotis virginea

There are three species of New Zealand pāua:

Species Scientific name Maori and common names
pāua Haliotis iris Blackfoot Pāua[1]
Queen Pāua Haliotis australis Silver Pāua, Yellow Foot Pāua, Hihiwa & Karariwha[1]
Virgin Pāua Haliotis virginea Marapeka & Koio[2]

New Zealand's best known pāua species is Haliotis iris. It is also the most common species, growing up to 18 cm (7") in width

Habitat

Pāua are commonly found in shallow coastal waters along rocky shorelines in depths of 1 to 10 metres (3' to 30'). There is clear distinction between juvenile and adult habitats for Haliotis iris, pāua less than 7 cm (3") occur in crevices and under stones in the shallow intertidal zone while adults are found in subtidal zone

Life

These large sea snails survive the strong tidal surges by clinging to rocks using their large muscular foot. They consume seaweed.

Harvesting

Pāua are gathered recreationally and commercially but strict catch limits are set for both. For recreational fishermen this is ten pāua per person per day. The minimum legal size for caught pāua is 125 mm (5") for Haliotis iris and 80 mm (3¼") for Haliotis australis, measured in a straight line at the greatest length of the shell.[3] The exception is Haliotis iris taken from the Amateur Taranaki Paua Fishery Area, which is the area of Taranaki coast bounded by the Awakino River in the north and the Whanganui River in the south, in which the minimum legal size is 85 mm (3¼"). However, pāua caught in this area cannot be taken east of State Highway 4 unless they meet the 125 mm (5") limit.[4]

In addition, no single person may have in their possession at any time (including on land) more than 20 pāua or more than 2.5 kg (5½ lb) of shucked (shell removed) pāua. Pāua can only be caught by free diving; it is illegal to dive for pāua using scuba equipment. All pāua must remain un-shucked until they are on the land side of the high tide mark so Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) fishery officers can inspect them if required.

There is an extensive global black market in the collection and export of abalone meat. Pāua poaching is a major industry in New Zealand with many thousands being taken illegally, often undersized. The right to harvest pāua can be granted legally under Māori customary rights, but since permits to harvest are abused, it is difficult to police. The limit is strictly enforced by roving MPI fishery officers with the backing of police. Fishery officers can issue infringement notices of between $250 and $500 for minor offences, such as having one or two more pāua than permitted. More serious offences have resulted in hefty court convictions, including seizure of diving gear, boats, and motor vehicles as well as large fines and in rare cases, imprisonment. The Ministry of Fisheries expects in the year 2004/05, nearly 1,000 tons of pāua will be poached, with 75% of that being undersized.[5]

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Awakino River (Waikato)

Awakino River (Waikato)

The Awakino River is a river located in the North Island of New Zealand. It has been described as one of the great rivers in the North Island providing top-quality backcountry fishing. Awakino township lies on its river banks. It rises on peaks of up to 762 m (2,500 ft) in the Herangi Range and flows 75 km (47 mi), initially southerly and then through Awakino Gorge in a south-westerly direction.

Whanganui River

Whanganui River

The Whanganui River is a major river in the North Island of New Zealand. It is the country's third-longest river, and has special status owing to its importance to the region's Māori people. In March 2017 it became the world's second natural resource to be given its own legal identity, with the rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. The Whanganui Treaty settlement brought the longest-running litigation in New Zealand history to an end.

Scuba set

Scuba set

A scuba set, originally just scuba, is any breathing apparatus that is entirely carried by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. Scuba is an anacronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Although strictly speaking the scuba set is only the diving equipment that is required for providing breathing gas to the diver, general usage includes the harness by which it is carried, and those accessories which are integral parts of the harness and breathing apparatus assembly, such as a jacket or wing style buoyancy compensator and instruments mounted in a combined housing with the pressure gauge, and in the looser sense, it has been used to refer to all the diving equipment used by the scuba diver, though this would more commonly and accurately be termed scuba equipment or scuba gear. Scuba is overwhelmingly the most common underwater breathing system used by recreational divers and is also used in professional diving when it provides advantages, usually of mobility and range, over surface supplied diving systems, and is allowed by the relevant legislation and code of practice.

Ministry for Primary Industries (New Zealand)

Ministry for Primary Industries (New Zealand)

The Ministry for Primary Industries is the public service department of New Zealand charged with overseeing, managing and regulating the farming, fishing, food, animal welfare, biosecurity, and forestry sectors of New Zealand's primary industries.

Poaching

Poaching

Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.

New Zealand Police

New Zealand Police

The New Zealand Police is the national police service and principal law enforcement agency of New Zealand, responsible for preventing crime, enhancing public safety, bringing offenders to justice, and maintaining public order. With about 13,000 personnel, it is the largest law enforcement agency in New Zealand and, with few exceptions, has primary jurisdiction over the majority of New Zealand criminal law. The New Zealand Police also has responsibility for traffic and commercial vehicle enforcement as well as other key responsibilities including protection of dignitaries, firearms licensing, and matters of national security.

Human use

A paua shell bracelet
A paua shell bracelet

To Māori, pāua are recognised taonga, or treasure, esteemed both as kaimoana (seafood) and as a valued resource for traditional and contemporary arts and crafts. Pāua are frequently used to represent eyes in Māori carvings and traditionally are associated with the stars or whetū, the symbolic eyes of ancestors that gaze down from the night sky.

Highly polished New Zealand pāua shells are extremely popular as pieces of jewellery with their striking blue, green, and purple iridescence.

Whole shells were commonly used as ashtrays through the 20th century.[6]

Other names

Haliotis means 'sea ear' and some parts of the world use this term for various species. Pāua is also called "Sea Opal" in the United States and Australia.[7]

Pāua aquaculture

Background

Pāua aquaculture is a growing industry in New Zealand. The industry was started in New Zealand in the 1980s and to date there are 14 pāua farms operating which are located throughout New Zealand, from Whangarei to Stewart Island. The first farms that were started consisted of small scale back yard and shed farms in which techniques and processes that grew good quality pāua were developed and these are now being used on a commercial scale in the large pāua farms. These farms produce pāua for their meat, shells and some farms solely focus on the production of blue pearls.[8] Most of the production from these farms is exported to the US, and Asian markets.

There is high demand on the worldwide market as decline in wild stocks due to over-fishing and poaching means that the global market for abalone is greatly under supplied.[9]

Aquacultural uses

Pāua meat and shells

Most pāua farms on-grow pāua that is produced from wild broodstock, however some farms have developed their own hatcheries and selective breeding programs to produce faster growing species, the pāua are then grown to market size (depending on conditions this usually takes 2 – 3 years) in either long trays with inflow of seawater at one end and out flow at the other, or smaller tanks with tipper buckets that regularly dump seawater into the tanks to recreate wave motion that the pāua experience in the wild.[10]

There are a number of different feeds used throughout the pāua's life-cycle. Pāua hatch as trochophore larvae and feed on plankton that are present in seawater that is being pumped into the holding tanks, when the larvae are ready to settle (usually 7 days at 16 °C; 61°F)[10] they are moved to settlement tanks which consist of many glass plates that have small films of diatoms present (usually Navicula minimata). The diatoms are the main food source for the juveniles until they reach about 3 cm (1") in length then the diet is switched to a macroalgae species. Several species have been used including Lessonia variegata Pterocladia sp. and Ulva lactuca, however research has shown that pāua will eat most seaweed species. The pāua are considered adults around 6 cm (2") in size and are then fed on a meal based diet until they are ready for processing and sale.[10]

Pāua pearls

New Zealand abalone pearls
New Zealand abalone pearls

To produce pāua pearls the pāua are harvested from the wild stocks (at the legal size of 12.5 cm; 5"), shell or plastic based implants are either poked through the shell or fixed in place under the shell with glue, the shape of the insert dictates the shape of the final pearl. After the pāua are “nucleated” they are kept in tanks for 2 to 3 years and fed on either seaweed or meal during which time they coat the insert with nacre . After the 2 – 3 years they are harvested from the tanks, the meat is shucked, and the pearl is then removed. The quality and size of the pearl changes depending on the size of the pāua. The pearls tend to be smaller when hatchery-reared pāua are used, which is why pāua from the wild are preferred. High stress levels within the farm can prevent the pāua from coating the insert to produce the pearl so control of the conditions in the farm to ensure that the pāua are not stressed is paramount in pearl production.[11]

Discover more about Pāua aquaculture related topics

Aquaculture

Aquaculture

Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater, brackish water and saltwater populations under controlled or semi-natural conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the harvesting of wild fish. Mariculture, commonly known as marine farming, refers specifically to aquaculture practiced in seawater habitats and lagoons, as opposed to freshwater aquaculture. Pisciculture is a type of aquaculture that consists of fish farming to obtain fish products as food.

New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering 268,021 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). New Zealand is about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.

Broodstock

Broodstock

Broodstock, or broodfish, are a group of mature individuals used in aquaculture for breeding purposes. Broodstock can be a population of animals maintained in captivity as a source of replacement for, or enhancement of, seed and fry numbers. These are generally kept in ponds or tanks in which environmental conditions such as photoperiod, temperature and pH are controlled. Such populations often undergo conditioning to ensure maximum fry output. Broodstock can also be sourced from wild populations where they are harvested and held in maturation tanks before their seed is collected for grow-out to market size or the juveniles returned to the sea to supplement natural populations. This method, however, is subject to environmental conditions and can be unreliable seasonally, or annually. Broodstock management can improve seed quality and number through enhanced gonadal development and fecundity.

Selective breeding

Selective breeding

Selective breeding is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional breeder, while domesticated plants are known as varieties, cultigens, cultivars, or breeds. Two purebred animals of different breeds produce a crossbreed, and crossbred plants are called hybrids. Flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees may be bred by amateurs and commercial or non-commercial professionals: major crops are usually the provenance of the professionals.

Trochophore

Trochophore

A trochophore is a type of free-swimming planktonic marine larva with several bands of cilia.

Ulva lactuca

Ulva lactuca

Ulva lactuca, also known by the common name sea lettuce, is an edible green alga in the family Ulvaceae. It is the type species of the genus Ulva. A synonym is U. fenestrata, referring to its "windowed" or "holed" appearance.

Seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of Rhodophyta (red), Phaeophyta (brown) and Chlorophyta (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as kelps provide essential nursery habitat for fisheries and other marine species and thus protect food sources; other species, such as planktonic algae, play a vital role in capturing carbon, producing at least 50% of Earth's oxygen.

Pearl

Pearl

A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes, known as baroque pearls, can occur. The finest quality of natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries. Because of this, pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, admirable and valuable.

Nacre

Nacre

Nacre, also known as mother of pearl, is an organic–inorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.

Popular culture

Pāua shells make up the decoration on Xena's first chakram in the hit TV series Xena: Warrior Princess.[12] Although the show was set predominately in Ancient Greece, the shell is used because the pāua is native to New Zealand, where the show was filmed.

Source: "Pāua", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 7th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāua.

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Further Reading

Abalone

Mariculture

Haliotis cracherodii

Haliotis australis

Haliotis iris

Haliotis virginea

Haliotis kamtschatkana

Haliotis asinina

Haliotis rufescens

Fishing industry in New Zealand

Fisheries Act 1996

Pleurotomariacea

Aquaculture in New Zealand

Aquaculture in Australia

Haliotis rubra

Ministry of Fisheries (New Zealand)

Leigh Marine Laboratory

Haliotis
Notes
  1. ^ a b www.nzfsa.govt.nz Retrieved on June 3rd, 2008.
  2. ^ "Haliotis - Māori Dictionary".
  3. ^ "Guidelines for gathering paua". Ministry of Primary Industries. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
  4. ^ "Shellfish – Central Fishery Management Area". Ministry of Primary Industries. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  5. ^ "Fishing and aquaculture | MPI - Ministry for Primary Industries. A New Zealand Government Department" (PDF).
  6. ^ "Beauty in cigarette butts". Stuff. 22 June 2014. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  7. ^ www.earthstreasure.com Archived 2012-07-30 at archive.today Retrieved on April 27th, 2008.
  8. ^ www.nzafa.org.nz/ Archived 2008-10-14 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2010-12-09
  9. ^ NIWA Retrieved 2010-12-09
  10. ^ a b c ISBN 0-8493-3528-0 Handbook of Culture of Abalone and other Marine Gastropods
  11. ^ www.Unlimited.co.nz Archived 2012-07-16 at archive.today Retrieved on 2010-12-09
  12. ^ "Loading... | Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand te Papa Tongarewa".
References
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