Abalone Farming in Baja's Pacific Waters

We were up before sunrise on the morning of the second day of our trip and hurried down to the beach where the Cooperativa had gathered for the day’s commercial activity. 

The crews were given a sheet of paper containing GPS coordinates, the quota of abalone to be harvested that day and a handheld GPS. Each panga was equipped with a small compressor and 150’ of air hose, and consisted of a crew of three, the panguero, a diver and the diver’s attendant. As promised, Juanchys had arranged for Glen and me to ride with them on one of the commercial pangas.  Soon all of the pangas were loaded and headed out to their assigned areas to begin the day’s work. 

In less than thirty minutes, we were on the spot. With a yank on the cord, the compressor sputtered to life and over the side went the heavily weighted, wetsuited-diver as he plunged to the bottom forty feet below. I watched as Juanchys managed the air and safety line.  As the bright yellow air line began trailing behind the diver, the panguero began rowing to keep up. 

“Our diver doesn’t walk, he runs,” Juanchys boasted. You see, they are not really divers, instead of fins, they wear protective boots and enough weights to keep them firmly planted on the bottom.  After fifteen minutes the diver popped to the surface and climbed into the boat, complaining that the bottom was devoid of rocks and consisted only of sand. The motor roared to life and we made a few hundred yard adjustment.

The diver returned to the bottom and it was barely fifteen minutes before there was a pull on the safety line signaling his dive bag was ready to be retrieved. Juanchys tugged and grunted as he hauled the overflowing bag of abalone to the surface.

Carefully counting and measuring the catch and setting aside the shorts before putting the abalone in the box, Juanchys scrawled the total of 27 with a pencil on the boat seat. When the next bag was hauled to the surface it contained 52 more shellfish. 

By now many pangas in our fleet were wrapping up and heading back to the beach having reached the day’s quota of 120 abalone. 

Juanchys smiled, “Fifteen more minutes.” And sure enough, Carlos soon bobbed to the surface with the remaining 31 to complete the day’s quota. The few shorts that had been collected were returned by the diver who carefully placed them on a rock on the bottom.

Back on the beach Juanchys introduced me to Enrique Lucero, Cooperativa Administrator, a young man who appeared to be equally as comfortable on the damp sandy beach as he would be back in his office at the recently completed cannery. Enrique oversees the entire commercial abalone and lobster operation for La Bocana and was supervising the offloading of the day’s catch.

“All the Cooperativas along the west coast from Turtle Bay to San Ignacio have banded together.” He explained. “As a group they have been able to apply innovative techniques to both lobster and abalone fisheries, with a common goal of restoring a sustainable fishery that produces a consistent yield from year to year while increasing the resource.”

Employing their own marine biologists, they have developed formulas that allow them to do just that and both the lobster and abalone stocks seem to be growing in spite of the continued commercial harvesting. 

Enrique also indicated that his group is interested in developing more tourism and sportfishing throughout the Vizcaíno region in the future. Later during my trip I spoke with a hotel owner who had visited the area recently and was considering establishing an operation there.

The newly completed cannery is a technological marvel employing state of the art equipment to process the catch and send the product off to market as efficiently as possible. Enrique encouraged Glenn and me to visit the facility. 

Less than an hour after returning to the beach, we were at the cannery. We donned protective wear and were taken inside of the facility. The crews were already wrapping up after processing the entire fleet’s catch for the day. 

After watching the commercial fishermen and their Cooperativas decimate marine resource after resource in Baja over the years, spending the morning on the panga with a crew that was careful to adhere to the instructions they were given, then, listening to Enrique as he enthusiastically outlined goals and techniques being implemented by his group to maintain the resources, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hope that maybe some of the new breed of commercial fishermen are beginning to get it right!

I originally met Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator, in 2008 when Juanchy a colorful local fisherman had arranged a trip for me with the local abalone divers.

Subsequently I wrote a article titled “A New Breed…Time Will Tell” praising Enrique and his group’s efforts attempting to restore their local abalone and lobster fisheries to sustainable levels.
I wrote “After watching the commercial fishermen and their Cooperativa’s decimate marine resource after resource in Baja over the years, listening to Enrique as he enthusiastically outlined goals and techniques being implemented by his group to maintain the resources, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hope that maybe some of the new breed of commercial fishermen are beginning to get it right!”

Recently I returned to La Bocana and was invited by my friend Enrique to tour their Aquaculture facility where they were growing abalone. Seriously, home grown abalone? What a concept! I can see a run on Aquarium equipment stores when this gets out.

Of course, I accepted and recruited another friend, Pedro Sors, producer and host of Cana y Carrete, a popular Mexican sport fishing television program, as my interpreter.

We began the tour of the nearly 9,000 sq ft. facility in a narrow room with tiled walls and white plastic buckets arranged around the parameter where a brood stock of twenty abalone mate and reproduce enough larva to ultimately replenish the abalone harvested, and more.

Using ultraviolet lights to stimulate growth the larvae begin to grow. When they have reached a predetermined size, they are transferred into temperature-controlled vats and fed a carefully monitored plankton diet. They remain in these vats until they have grown to be visible to the naked eye. The next step is to move the now visible mollusks to the more than twenty recirculation tanks located in a large outside area.

Each tank is equipped with special boxes made of plastic sheeting for the larvae to cling to as they continue to grow.

As the crop of eight to nine thousand grow, they are carefully monitored and each individual abalone is assigned a number which in placed on the top of their now formed shell, allowing the staff to fine-tune the diet of each generation for optimum results. Most of the abalone are transplanted to the wild in ten to eleven months and are about 1 inch in diameter at that time.

Oceanologist Aguilar Daniel and Jose Manuel Aguilar technical assistant maintain the facility normally. Only when the workload increases are additional personnel brought in to assist them.

The entire system was developed initially by visits to similar facilities in other countries around the world along with the help of visiting technicians from the United States, Japan and Chile, to name just a few of the countries that assisted in the early stages of this remarkable program.

With the knowledge provided and many trial and error adjustments which allowed for local temperature fluctuations along the Pacific, as well as adjustments to the algae and seaweed diet, the success rate has grown and the mortality rate remains at only 5%. The twenty-three year-old program has become extremely efficient, allowing for the harvest of abalone while returning enough to juveniles to the beds to maintain the sustainability of this valuable shellfish resource for the community.

While the Cooperativa’s success with the abalone is impressive, there is much more. The lobster population which was once nearly decimated by overharvesting along the coast line in the 40-kilometer concession assigned to the group was recently named as one of five lobster habitats in the world that have returned to sustainable levels. . .a remarkable achievement for this remote community of approximately 1,500.

Beginning his second term as Administrator at the beginning of the year, Enrique Espinoza, Cooperativa Progresso Administrator’s excitement is infectious as he explains the successes of his group. His eyes sparkle as he proudly gives the details of how the nearly 200 members voted to forbid gillnets in the nine-mile-long La Bocana estero effective at the beginning of 2011, and the protection of Merro (black seabass and grouper) making it illegal to catch them commercially as well as limiting them recreationally.

To replace the loss of income for the local fishermen, he is now encouraging members to look to sport fishing for a more reliable income stream. His organization now offers several programs for members to purchase on credit quality sportfishing equipment at a deep discount for those who choose that path, as well as promoting the nine-mile estuary for sport fishing, building small cabins, and training members to conduct sportfishing trips.

Cooperativa Progresso and their leader, Enrique Espinoza, are a shining light in the dimly lit world of Baja commercial fishing.

By Gray Graham