On Santispac Beach in Baja California Sur, thousands of baby totoabas, endemic to the Gulf of California, are starting a new life. This marks the tenth generation reintroduced to prevent their extinction.
Since Friday, June 27, 40,000 baby totoabas, each about 10 inches long, are swimming freely in the waters of Santispac Beach, located in the municipality of Mulegé, Baja California Sur. This reintroduction is a milestone in the conservation efforts for this iconic species, thanks to a joint program between the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), the regenerative aquaculture company Santomar, and civil society.
This is the tenth generation of totoabas released into their natural habitat as part of a national repopulation strategy in the Gulf of California—known as the Aquarium of the World—a unique ecosystem where this species, endemic and one-of-a-kind on the planet, plays a crucial role in marine balance. The initiative has already released 270,000 specimens, aiming to reverse decades of overfishing and illegal trafficking that pushed the totoaba to the brink of extinction.
Dr. Marina Robles García, Undersecretary of Biodiversity and Environmental Restoration at Semarnat, highlighted that the program’s success is possible thanks to scientific development applied to totoaba cultivation in laboratories located in Sonora and Baja California, with the participation of the Institute of Oceanological Research at UABC. These research centers have perfected the reproduction and rearing of the species under human care, to then reintroduce them in a controlled manner to the wild.
Additionally, Robles García emphasized that in La Paz, a state-of-the-art regenerative aquaculture system has been built, where even larval food is cultivated in tanks filled with microalgae. “This joint effort shows that it is indeed possible to recover threatened species, as has already happened with the California condor and the Mexican wolf,” she noted.
The release of the totoaba holds significant symbolic value, as it is a species that has been subject to intense commercial fishing since the 1920s due to the high value of its meat and, more recently, its swim bladder, which is highly sought after in the Asian black market. This pressure led to its permanent ban in 1975 and its inclusion in the NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010 as a species in Danger of Extinction.
Thanks to the Wildlife Conservation Management Units (UMA) scheme, nearly 3 million totoabas have been bred in Mexico over the past decade. Of these, more than 20% have been destined to repopulate the sea, allowing these fish to begin migrating to other areas of the Gulf, even as far north as San Felipe, in Baja California.
During the event, Pablo Konietzko, director of Santomar, expressed that this project is a way to “give something back to the sea.” He acknowledged the fundamental role of coastal communities, fishermen, and especially the children who participated in the release, as a symbol of connection between science, nature, and new generations.
The municipal president of Mulegé, Edith Aguilar Villavicencio, celebrated the citizen participation and the tenth anniversary of this activity, which, in addition to being a conservation effort, also strengthens local pride and the environmental identity of the region.
This participatory conservation effort not only aims to save the totoaba but also to demonstrate that collaboration between government, science, private initiative, and civil society can generate real and lasting impacts in the protection of emblematic Mexican species.
Fuente: bigfish.mx