Baby Totoaba Restocking - February, 2007
This is the restocking project of the Unidad de Biotecnología en Piscicultura, Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, (Biotechnology in Fish Studies Unit at the Marine Science School) UABC's Campus in Ensenada, here is a bit of background information. The UABC staff are as follows: Gerardo Sandoval, Norberto Castro Castro, Ivan Monay, Conal David True and Roman Ponce. We went out on the Jose Andrés to drop the babies in the upper estuary, which is about two hours north of San Felipe.
The Jose Andres had to go out of the harbor to pump fresh water into the tanks which will hold the babies. The truck is on it's way from Ensenada and in the mean time, we are taking the panga out to the boat. The boat was then brought into the harbor and we had quite a small space to fit into at the pier. Not to fear; Captain Barrego parked it like it was a Volkswagon.
The empty tanks on the left will have oxygen pumped into them when the babies are transferred from the truck (on the right). It was quite a process and the UABC people are discussing their strategy. The following photos are of staff transferring the babies into the tanks on the boat.
Tony Reyes Sr., UABC, and Tony Reyes Jr. Tony has lent his boat to the university on many occasions.
The babies are in the pouch which will be lowered to the boat. It's a low tide, so they must be transferred via a long rope to awaiting hands on the Jose Andres. This process took about an hour. The boat was scheduled to leave at about 9:00 a.m., however, we didn't actually leave until around 11:00 a.m.
You can see how many babies are in the pouch. As there were at least 2,000 babies, the transfer took some time.
UABC staff and crew receiving the babies from the truck above.
Once the UABC staff received the pouch, they had to be transferred to the tanks on the boat.
John Chow, former charter master for Tony Reyes, helps out by lowering the pouches. Those low tides make life a bit difficult.
The photo below shows the tiny fish in the tanks on the boat.
Below, the babies are on their way to a great new adventure. I was discussing the babies with Jerry and we thought that they may be in for a shock, all of a sudden having to fend for themselves after being fed each day. They will now have to feed themselves. I asked Conal what the odds were for 2,000 babies to make it and he thought 20% would be a fair guess. That's 20% of 2,000 babies or about 400 that will grow to maturity.
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