Universidad Autonoma de Baja California

After a short convoy through beautiful downtown Ensenada, we arrived at the campus of UABC, across the road from CICESE. There our gracious host, Dr. Jorge Ledesma, gave us a tour of campus, especially the facilities for replenishing the stocks of totoaba in the Gulf of California.

We were shown totoaba at various stages of development, up to "lunkers" ready for release at over 1 meter in length. The goal is to release 2,000 this year, and ultimately to release 100,000 fish per year into the Gulf of California.

About UABC at Ensenada:

It was established in 1960 in downtown Ensenada, originally named Escuela Superior de Ciencias Marinas, as part of the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, the first institution of its kind in Latin America.

The purpose is to train people on areas of marine knowledge, therefore this institution has four basic departments; Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Geology. During the first years the Scripps Institution of Oceanography was very supportive of the efforts done in Ensenada. The institution moved to its actual site on 1971. In particular, the Geology department has beneficiated from a close relationship with SDSU, especially ever since the Baja project in which Gordon Gastil was the leader, and with several people attending the Master's program, and later trough research partnerships. Actually the official name for Ciencias Marinas is Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, since it offers Master's and PhD programs in Coastal Oceanography the four disciplines in marine sciences.

The enrollment today is a follows, 255 at the bachelor level, 50 in the master's program and 49 in the PhD program. We have 47 full time professors and 40 adjuncts. Overall, we have 1904 graduates.