During a February visit to the old abalone farm north of Cayucos, about 900 concrete tanks once full of bubbling seawater pumped from the ocean to feed valuable red abalone sat dry and empty aside from shiny, leftover shells.
Built beginning in the late 1960s, the abalone farm at its peak between the 1990s to late 2010s raised about 1 million abalones annually that were then processed on site and sold around the world for their meat, considered a delicacy in some areas.
The facility is considered the largest land-based marine aquaculture facility in North America.
Since its closure in 2020, however, the Cayucos abalone farm has sat empty and mostly untouched since the last day water flowed through the tanks…
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