FISHING DOWN THE FOOD WEB
In the Gulf of California coastal fishermen face an uncertain future. Their catch varies unpredictably, and they often find themselves fishing down the food web, each year taking less, smaller and lower quality fish. Here in Kino Bay, women pack jellyfish for sale in Asia. In this community, the largest catch was not grouper or bass, instead they netted jellies – a creature formally not worth harvesting. In the Gulf of California large predatory fish, like the gulf grouper, totoaba and several species of shark were once abundant. Due to these fishing patterns, each of these predatory species was reduced in number and are now uncommon. A reduction in the population of top predators means large shifts in prey populations, and can disrupt entire food webs.

ENDEMIC SPECIES
Plants or animals with limited ranges are said to be endemic. In the Northern Gulf of California we have an endemic porpoise, the vaquita, which is not found in any other sea. Due to its geographic isolation, the Gulf of California is home to many endemics, including 90 species of fish. Endemic species are much more vulnerable to population declines and extinctions than species with large geographic ranges.

HALOPHYTE PLANTS
Literally salt-loving, these plants have adapted to survive the high salinities in the hypersaline estuaries of the Northern Gulf. Rather than excluding salt at their roots, halophytes will take in the salts and then find ways to deal with this potentially toxic substance. Some species excrete the salts, others isolate them into vacuoles.  While mangroves thrive in wetlands below 29º N latitude, the northern wetlands are dominated by several species of salt tolerant shrubs, succulents and grasses, including salt grass, pickleweed and saltwort. Halophytes were harvested by indigenous groups. Nypa, Distichlis palmeri, was used by the Cucapa of the Colorado River delta. Today halophytes are cultivated using seawater for a variety of uses.

BENTHIC
The benthos is the floor of a sea or lake. Many organisms are specialists in benthic environments, living on, in or attached to the bottom. Here, in the Gulf of California, we have sandy, muddy and rocky bottoms, each with its unique assemblage of species.  The least common, and most diverse of these three habitats are rocky reefs. These reefs are formed either of basalt, a volcanic rock, or coquina, a sedimentary rock formed form decomposing materials, shells, rocks and sand. Rocky reefs give algae, tunicates, sponges a firm place to attach.

GEODUCK FISHERY
These large and strange clams can live for 100 years, filter-feeding through their siphon in sandy bottoms in the Northern Gulf of California. Pronounced “Gooeyduck”, the fishery for geoduck clams is just beginning in our region. CEDO supports one cooperative interested in developing this  fishery as a sustainable enterprise (socio-economically as well as ecologically) from the beginning. The clam also has potential for aquaculture, as it is currently grown with commercial success in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

 
A SAFETY NET FOR FISHERIES
Both in Mexico and globally the Northern Gulf of California is a priority for marine conservation. To protect the spawning grounds of many commercial species and habitat of endangered, endemic animals such as the totoaba and the vaquita, in 1993 the northern most part of the Gulf was designated as the upper Gulf of California/Colorado River Delta Biosphere Reserve. As one of Mexico’s first marine reserves, it has served as an important laboratory for learning about the conservation of marine resources and for fisheries management.

BLACK MUREX
These fist-sized predatory snails have been harvested by local commercial divers since the early 1990s. The snail’s habit of forming massive spawning aggregations makes it vulnerable and an easy catch. With the divers harvest increasing through the 1990s, the population began to show serious signs of decline. Concerned, the divers approached CEDO to try to better manage this and other benthic mollusks (snails, clams and relatives that live on the ocean bottom).