Kino Viejo/ Estero Santa Cruz

We explored Kino Viejo today in order to get an idea of what the town is like. As we started walking around I saw this little kid playing in his yard and I thought that he was adorable but on to more important things. We walked down to the beach where the fish market is but I think most people sell there catch in the morning so we did not find a lot of people to talk to so we decided to walk on further. An interesting observation from the beach to point out is that a pedestrian dock that had been added recently was torn up due to a Hurricane that they had come through a couple months ago. We decided to walk on some of the side streets in hope that we might find some people that we could talk to. We ended up finding several people sitting up on their patio. One of the men, Juan, asked us if we wanted to buy some shrimp ( in perfect English). From there we asked him what he did for a living and he said that he had recently moved down to Kino from New Mexico. He added that he had been working dry wall jobs there for a while before he was caught; he did not have his documents. We asked him if he knew anything about the fishing in town. He said that the shrimp fishing had been down this year. He told us that when he had first arrived in town he got a job as a gviotas. A gviotas (seagull) is a job where you help out any of the boats at the dock with unloading their catch and scrubbing down the boats. You can earn some money or a portion of the catch doing this. We learned that many people make a living buying fish from the fishermen for a cheap price, if they personally know the fisherman, and then sell it at a slightly lower price. He said that the price for shrimp was 70-80 pesos/kilo for the smaller shrimp( 50 pesos if you know the fishermen), and 120 pesos/kilo for the bigger shrimp. There are about 200-300 panagas that fish from Bahia de Kino. Another interesting thing that Juan mentioned is that he used to be able to lie his way through the border but that this has changed due to stricter regulations.

After talking to Juan we had to get back to the van to go to the estuary. As we drove, we passed Dictus, Unidad Experimental Kino. This is the group who does most of the research concerning pollution and aquaculture nutrient output. Ramon Rembasas is the director.

We reached Estero Santa Cruz around sunset and the estuary was filled with different birds. Estuaries are biologically important due to the fact that they provide coastal habitat for wintering birds. They are also the nursery grounds for many different invertebrates. The history on Estero Santa Cruz is that they Rio Sonora used to flow into it which has resulted in the sediment rich state it has today. Santa Cruz is the largest estuary in Sonora. It is an interesting estuary because it is an ecotone meaning it lies between two ecosystem in this case mangrove and salt marsh. Santa Cruz has three different kinds of mangrove: red, white, and black. Estuaries have a diurnal tide in which it comes in and out twice a day.

Within the estuary there are Japanese oyster aquaculture beds. Oyster aquaculture compared to shrimp aquaculture has a lesser environmental impact due to the fact that they do not add in nutrients for them to grow. Oysters unlike shrimp are filter feeders and thus obtain all of their food from the estuarian water. The oysters that are grown here from the Ojai aquaculture plant are made for national consumption.

Some of the birds that we saw include:White ibis, white pelican, reddish egret, willet, long billed curlew, clapper rail, wimbrill, yellow crown night heron, and spotted sandpiper. We also saw fiddler crabs ( see picture) It is easy to see that the mudflats are healthy due to the diversity of birds found there.