07-04-2018 01:40 via seattletimes.com

Divers risk drowning and sharks to poach abalone worth $200 a pound

One of the world’s most expensive abalone species, Haliotis midae, occurs only on the southern and western shores of South Africa, where its high value, set amid sweeping poverty, has fueled a poaching epidemic since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.
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