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By Rebecca Pilkington-Vincett
A feeding station popular with manta rays is not far from the Misool Eco Resort and Conservation Center in Raja Ampat, eastern Indonesia.
RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia —They’ve been described by one scientist as “pandas of the ocean.”
“They’re such an iconic species, beloved by divers,” said Andrea Marshall, director of the Marine Megafauna Foundation, who came up with the description during an interview with NBC News. “They’re just amazing.”
Unlikely as it might seem, the panda and the manta ray have a lot in common.
Just as scientists still haven’t been able to confirm the number of pandas in the wild, they also have no idea how many manta rays exist.
“Globally we don’t know how many manta rays there are,” said Guy Stevens, director of the U.K.-based Manta Trust, whose research is largely based around manta populations in the Maldives.
But -- again, like the panda -- scientists think it’s a small population.
“If they’re lucky, (manta rays) have two pups (over several years). That’s a very low reproductive rate, especially compared to your average fish,” said Dr. Heidi Dewar, a biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, part of NOAA.
Anecdotal evidence suggests mantas are under threat, and China may be a major reason for it.
Manta rays are vulnerable on two fronts: as bycatch — getting caught in industrial fishing nets targeting different types of tuna — and, increasingly, because of traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM.
Manta rays are abundant in the waters around Raja Ampat, eastern Indonesia.
Manta rays are harvested for their gill rakers, which allow the fish to filter food from water. Some Chinese believe they have healing properties or are good at cleaning out toxins. One Chinese-language website claims gill rakers enhance the immune system, promote blood circulation and aid in the treatment of cancer, skin disease and infertility.
“It’s just cartilage,” said Dewar, echoing skepticism expressed by many scientists.
Medicinal fad?
Conservationists say manta rays aren’t even considered “traditional” medicine and argue no reference to the animal can be found in TCM books dating back a century. But with rising incomes that enable Chinese consumers to readily adopt medicinal fads, the impact on manta rays has accelerated over the past 10 to 15 years.
“A lot of it is completely unrecorded,” said Stevens, who worked on a project founded by Shark Savers and WildAid to document the scope of gill-raker harvesting.
Understanding the beauty and diversity of Raja Ampat, aka 'Underwater Eden'
Researchers looked at the location, value and species involved. “It does seem the majority of all of those gills that are being traded are ending up in China,” Stevens said.
The conclusion, published in a report called Manta Ray of Hope, found that roughly 3,400 manta rays and 94,000 mobulas (related to the manta ray family) are caught each year, but the numbers reflect only reported catches. “Unreported and subsistence fisheries will mean true landings are much higher,” the report said.
On patrol with a shark ranger in Indonesia's marine treasure trove
Visits to random TCM shops in Beijing and Shanghai turned up no gill rakers. In fact, a veteran pharmacist at Tongrentang, a long-established purveyor of traditional Chinese and herbal medicines, said she had never heard of manta rays being used this way.
But the Manta Ray of Hope report estimates a mature ocean manta could yield up to 15 pounds of dried gills that can bring in as much as $230 a pound in a market in China.
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Marshall said she has noticed an uptick in manta fishing. “I’ve been (in Mozambique) in the last decade … and we’ve seen an 87 percent decline in the population because of the fishing.”
Unlike many shippers, Chinese merchants who transport cheap products from the mainland for export to Africa “want to fill [their unloaded cargo vessels] with resources wherever they go. In Africa, they fill it up with wood, fish or shark’s fin,” she said. “They’ll go out to the local fisheries along the coastline and scout for these products.”
The scientist has spoken to members of local communities, who say the Chinese offer “new nets, new lines, new hooks. (The Chinese traders) say to them, ‘If you get the sharks or the mantas or the turtles, you get all the meat. You can keep all the meat. You just sell us the things you don’t normally eat.'”
Protecting a ‘threatened’ species
Mantas were listed last year as “threatened” under the international Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has classified the manta ray as “vulnerable” to extinction.
PhotoBlog: Raja Ampat archipelago: The world's last paradise
Chinese scientists have also weighed in.
“In the last two years, we have conducted evaluations of the manta ray and submitted a recommendation to the government to list it as a protected species,” said Professor Wang Yanmin from Shandong University’s Marine College.
“There is no regulation for protecting the manta ray so sales of mantas are not illegal,” said Feng Yongfeng, founder of Green Beagle, a group that promotes environmental protection.
Groups like Manta Trust are focusing on getting manta rays listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). But scientists have their work cut out for them.
“It’s very difficult to get listed on CITES. They ask for a lot of detail that is difficult to pin down,” said Marshall. “Maybe in the terrestrial world, biologists can provide those kinds of details. When you’re talking about the megafauna [or large marine species] world, it’s very difficult.”
Marshall – who discovered a second type of manta ray in 2008 and is in the process of identifying a third -- acknowledges little is known about them.
AFP - Getty Images file
A huge manta ray weighing more than 2,200 pounds and measuring nearly 9 yards in length was caught off the eastern coast of China this past September.
Manta births a mystery
Vexing questions include the manta’s life span, details of their reproductive ecology and migratory patterns.
“I could wrap my life up in 20 minutes if I could talk to them,” she joked. “It has been driving me insane for the last ten years because I haven’t been able to figure out where they give birth. It’s 2012 and nobody has ever seen a manta give birth in the wild.”
And research is painstaking. For one, concentrations of the animal tend to be around far-flung islands. Stevens of Manta Trust cited the costs of tracking mantas and the difficulty in locating and knowing how to study them.
With technological improvements, however, scientists are gaining some ground. Satellite tags are one way to help the research. “What do they do when we can’t observe them? I’d love to follow an animal to find out how they spend their time,” said Stevens. “The tagging gives you small glimpses of them.”
Two dive instructors at the Misool Eco Resort and Conservation Center in Raja Ampat have uncovered a revenue stream to offset research costs: tourism.
“One manta ray can raise $1 million (U.S. dollars) in tourism income over its lifetime,” said Rebecca Pilkington-Vincett, citing a figure contained in the Manta Ray of Hope report.
PhotoBlog: Raja Ampat archipelago: The world's last paradise
With the blessing of the resort, Pilkington-Vincett and Calvin Beale launched a research project off the surrounding reefs.
Last season, the duo raised $32,000 from donations by recreational divers who accompanied them on dives to gather DNA samples and tag the mantas.
With the money, they have bought three satellite tags and collected numerous DNA samples. They are sending off the data to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for analysis by a graduate student.
With online databases such as the Manta Research Project, where some of Pilkington-Vincett and Beale’s data are logged, or the Manta Matcher, developed by Marshall and operating much “like the FBI fingerprint online database,” research on the manta ray has become rooted in a global exchange among scientists and amateurs alike.
Until its secrets are fully revealed, the manta’s mystique seems guaranteed.
“I think it’s fascinating,” said Dewar of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, “that there is such a large and amazing creature that has so many mysteries attached to it.”
Additional research by Le Li, Johanna Armstrong and Yanzhou Liu.
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Leave a Comment:
Ok. I'm part Japanese and I don't agree with any of the commercial catches the Japanese or Chinese do in regards to Sharks, Manta Rays. They do this for the belief of healing and commercial sales instead of the need to feed the body to stay alive. At the rate we're stuffing our faces (i.e. overweight Americans) we need to limit the fishing of these poor animals. Manta Rays are such beautiful and graceful creatures and it would just be horrible to see them become extinct.
As for sharks, they are here to maintain the ecosystem and to cut off their fins and release them back into the water to have them suffer is just horribly wrong. Those fishermen will most likely return in their next life as shark bait for what they're doing in their current life.
We have got to be more careful with how we're treating our oceans and precious animals. It's a terrible reality and needs to me controlled.
are manta rays one of the animals you people think is magic?
Further up in these commentaries, someone said we are too small to fight the massacre of sea life and other beings on this earth. I whole-hardily disagree. Americans need to be educated on how the Walmart/China connection is crippling this country for openers. There has to be a serious movement to educate Americans so they can comprehend what is actually happening to their country. Yes, it can be done. Roll back to the 60's as proof.
The Vietnam war made no sense to a segment of the US population and they banded together and protested the war at every chance. The media woke up and interviewed them. Thus began the education of why the war was wrong and killing masses of our young military. A successful movement needs smart and intelligent leaders. They are out there, believe me. Once Americans have been educated, then its on to the Chinese, Japanese and African nations, shaming them for being bad global neighbors.
if i was one of those scientists, i'd tag them with something that a submersible drone could trace and follow and record them as they live...they could keep switching them out...
People who eat weird food, thinking it has mystical properties or whatever, are nuts.
Too many followers in the world...
Here's an idea.. Let the governments where these endangered animals are being poached and brought to the edge of extinction, like the Rhino and the Gorilla, etc, SUE the countries that are directly responsible for importing these illegal animal parts! Africa should sue the hell out of ALL the Asian countries who are KNOWN to purchase them, such as Japan, China, etc, etc! Hold the GOVERNMENTS responsible for the actions of their people, FORCING them to actually take a hand in going after and punishing those who buy or hire others to kill these animals! Make it a thousand times more dangerous and costly for these brokers to buy anything having to do with endangered animals! Make it so expensive by leveling fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars against them, along with LONG prison terms and I guarantee you the demand for these animal parts would fall DRAMATICALLY!
These governments, that turn a blind eye towards the people that pay for and encourage others to do their dirty work for them, i.e., poaching the animals in the first place, need to be held responsible right along with the citizens of THEIR country! They need to pay for the damage their people are doing! Standing around and twiddling their thumbs while their people commit international crimes needs to stop! Make THEM liable!
Ok, but that pretty much applies to illegal drugs too. If the Mexican drug cartels exist to supply the US market for drugs, doesn't that make the US government liable to Mexico for the problems they cause?
The US is one of the worst offenders. And doubles down, claiming that we need a Drug War!!
More $$$$$ for them, Less commonsense in problem solving for us. Follow the money.
I should have know china was involved in some way.
This time again, because these illiterate, repressive, murderous, excuses for human protoplasm think the fish have medicinal properties that help these pieces of blight on the earth that call themselves chinese.
china loves to kill and eat any and all species until they are completely wiped out, china loves to steal any body's land they want, china goes in and murders hundreds of thousands of people and the rest of the world stands by and watches, just as they are in this instance.
I hope that they find a way to start conserving the Manta's real soon, but just as japan ignores the international whaling laws, china will continue on harvesting and murdering this species until they are also wiped out.
Keep up the good work world, you are doing a heck of a job.
Once again because of the outrageous behavior of the Chinese, the world is about to lose another species. They will be the death of us all........
At the risk of sounding racist, the greater Chinese culture & its opinion/treatment of life is just horrific. Honestly Asia in general is just a horrific place rife with corruption, pollution and no regard for life/the Earth. A nice super volcano eruption thinning that herd wouldn't be a bad thing.
Well, before we start talking about the Chinese, the Aquatarium in Florida used mantas as food for the whales etc..they had them stacked in the freezers...wonder if other aquatariums are doing the same thing now? I was stationed in Hawaii and we were bringing a boat back to the pier when a huge manta cleared the water right next to our boat going the same direction. It was amazing....and they are so graceful in the water. I just can't understand why Man has to kill everything on the planet.
That would be one of the only ethical reasons for hunting mantas, to feed a species that if they were in the wild would feed on them (although those were probably the 'bycatch' type, where they were caught and injured past the point of re-release so were retained for captive whale food). And one would assume they weren't just feeding the whales the 'tails' and tossing out the rest. I think that the part that offends most people is the practice of just cutting off the bits that are worth a lot of money and dumping the rest of the animal overboard. And the part in the story where they are encouraging African fisherman to aid in the acquisition isn't anywhere near as offensive as that, at least the fishermen are feeding their villages with the bulk of the animal. I'm not enough of a hypocrite to say it isn't ok for hungry people to eat them just because I think they are breathtakingly beautiful. And they aren't protected yet, so it isn't illegal.
I would love to be shown which Marine Park/Aquatarium followed this practice. They are not still doing so, right?
Give us a link to verify either way. I could not find anything.
Thanks, & Peace!
Blaming China alone is BS.
Fake scallops are made by punching holes in a manta ray wing with a cookie cutter. I'm just saying....
@!$%# the chinese and manta rays...panda bears too.
barbaque them. roast them. their tasty. Hell have sex with them if you want..all @!$%# going on and their wasting their time with a @!$%#ing fish?
Manta gills are just cartilage but the fracked oil we use is just oil and oil from the blowout prone Gulf of Mexico is just oil, too.
I live in a walkable neighborhood so I have been able to live without a motor vehicle for over 5 years. I have been trying-out veganism for 2 years and that is working out OK. I watch my energy consumption and spend about $0.27 cents per day to subsidize lower carbon electricity.
The main theme here seems to be, for every ChinaMan who cannot get his wang up or feels unhealthy, another innocent animal must die. Superstitious and selfish culture, with no regard for nature.
Unfortunately, when you look at the news, all the Chinese look unhealthy to me, and most of them have to wear gas masks every day when outside.
Also, their govt doesn't just turn a 'Blind Eye', they pretty much endorse any action that makes $. In fact, earlier this year, a pharmaceutical company was trying to add Bear Bile Farms to their stock exchange. Fricking Sick!
So long Animal Planet.