Over the course of a lifetime, each manta generates as much as $1 million in revenue for the tourism economy. Once feared as ‘devil fish' due to prominent hornlike fins and their enormous bulk, mantas are now respected for the income they generate.Īccording to the 2011 report “ Ray of Hope” published by the conservation group WildAid, they are worth far more alive than dead. Manta rays are a huge draw for tourists Image: picture alliance/Arco Imagesīut there are a few things that could yet ensure the creatures’ survival. In 2011, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) determined both species of manta ray, Giant Manta (Manta birostris) and the Reef Manta (Manta alfredi) vulnerable to extinction globally.
These traits make them extremely vulnerable to overfishing.
They are slow to mature, corresponding to an age of 8 to 10 years, they are believed to live for at least 40 years or more and are slow to reproduce, giving birth to a single pup every 2 to 5 years. Stevens wants to unravel this mystery, in the hope of creating a comprehensive conservation strategy.Īccording to conservationists, the size of the global manta ray population remains a mystery. For reasons that remain unknown, the manta ray population inexplicably stopped reproducing for a period of three years in the Maldives. Manta rays are indicators of the health of the reef ecosystem, he explained. "I consider them (manta rays) to be the canary in the coal mine," Stevens said. Individual manta rays and catalogued their behavior for well over a decade. Stevens and his team have identified 3,300 Guy Stevens, a PhD candidate at the University of York and founder of the Manta Trust, a UK-based charity focused on marine conservation, has spent much of his adult life studying manta rays in the Maldives. Steep declines have also been recorded in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and they have all but disappeared from the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, where manta rays once thrived. In Mozambique, where some of the highest densities are found, manta ray populations plummeted by 80 percent in the last decade. Once prevalent in tropical and subtropical waters throughout the vast expanse of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, manta rays are in danger of being wiped out.Īs the fishing industry races to meet the rising global demand for seafood, manta rays are inadvertently killed in fishing nets as bycatch and hunted for their gill rakers for use in Chinese health tonics. In fact, the Maldives are one of the few places on earth where the charismatic creatures survive in large numbers. One of the star attractions here are manta rays. European and Australian divers disembark by the planeload in the capital city of Malé, drawn to the island nation encompassing 1,192 islands and 26 reef atolls in the vast remoteness of the Indian Ocean. With their languid tropical waters and coral reefs teeming with sea life, the Maldives are a major tourist hotspot.
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