How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 092: Peru and 12 Other Countries Protect Manta Rays
Peru and 12 other countries are looking to protect Manta Rays from accidental catches (bycatch) and being fished to extinction through various protection methods including a highly regulated fishery (maybe even banning fishing altogether) to allow for a more sustainable ecotourism industry to flourish.
Support the Podcast:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon
Shop for the Ocean:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/shop
10 Ocean Tips to Conserve the Ocean:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/wordpress/sufb_optinpdf
Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session92
Come to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, session 92. Today, we're going to talk about how Peru and 12 other nations now seek to protect giant oceanic man arrays whose meat and gill plates are coveted in China. Today on the Speak Up For Blue Podcast. Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, he still puts his hands in the air. Because he doesn't care, Andrew Lewin. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up For Blue Podcast. Your voice for the ocean. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of SpeakUpForBlue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed oceanpreneur. That's right. I'm an oceanpreneur who sole purpose, sole mission is to protect the ocean. And I do, one of the ways I do it is through this podcast. And today, we're going to talk about protecting the ocean, protecting some of its wildlife, in particular, the giant oceanic manter, right? But before we get into that, I would just like to thank our supporters that are supporting us through Patreon. They support the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, Dr. Judith Weiss, Judy and Ron and Chris and Claire. I really appreciate your support. So thank you very much for supporting the Speak Up For Blue Podcast. If you want to support this podcast and the information coming out of it, you can do so at SpeakUpForBlue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Let's get to it. This is the Speak Up For Blue Podcast and we're going to talk about manneries, giant oceanic manneries. The Latin name is Manta by Rastris and it needs protection. Now this Manta Ray is found in Peru, South America area and it is coveted worldwide. And we're going to talk about all that today. So let's get into it. So there are 13 countries in total that want to have manneray fishing closed. And there's the specific reasons for it. The oceanic manneray population has decreased by 80% over the past 75 years. Manneries are often caught as bycatch due to other targeted species that are caught in nets. They may be caught on a long line, gill nets, however, these things are obviously giant oceanic manneray. So they're massive. They can weigh over 2,000 pounds and to be honest, the way this whole species got highlighted for protection was back in April in Peru, Northern Peru, an unintentionally caught behemoth manneray that was 2,000 pounds, was caught off the coast of Peru and it shed light onto this species and what is happening to this species, why it's being sought after, whether it's caught on purpose or caught by accident, why it's being sought after. And they're sought after for their gill rakers. So essentially the gills that you see underneath the manneray, you can actually see them if you look at their underside, they actually filter out plankton, they're not, they don't have teeth, they don't catch fish and whatnot, they eat plankton, they're filter feeders and they filter through their gill rakers and they're also caught for their meat. So you know, mannerays are sort of what we call birds of the sea. They have wings, what look like wings. And so what happens is the meat from those wings are cut off and of course shipped overseas and then they're eaten through that. And of course, China is the biggest consumers of manner products, especially in the province of gang zoo. The demand is soared in recent years as an alternative to shark fin. So you've heard how shark fin soup and shark the sales shark fin has gone down in China because of education, because of pressure against the government to say, hey, you know what, this is bad, you're actually decreasing, you know, 80% of all shark species around the world because of this or helping to 100 million sharks are caught every year and the fins are sought after the fins are cut off and shipped over to China and other Asian countries to serve this sort of, I guess, this culturally aesthetic pleasing, it's like a class, a sign of class if you have, if you can afford shark fin soups or more and more people are having it. And of course, in China, there's a billion people affecting. So for that affects the population, right, that affects the population of when more and more people can afford shark fin soup, and it's a class sort of sign, a sign of class, then you say, okay, well, you know, the shark population is going to go down. So of course, because shark fins have gone, the sales shark fins have gone down, now there's another alternative in manta rays. And there hasn't been a huge highlight on manta rays as much as shark fin. Of course shark fin soup has had, and shark, the sales shark fin was really highlighted through the movie shark waters when really people really started to identify with this problem and organizations just sprouted and people who've been working at trying to get shark fin reduced shark fin sale and shark fin, or people catching for shark fins and whatnot reduced, this has been going for a while and it's, we've seen significant reduction in the sale of shark fin, which is of course going to stop people from, or reduce people from catching sharks just for their fins. While they had has gone into China, one of the organizations has gone into China, worked with Chinese partners, so different organizations in China, to educate the public, educate kids, educate their families on why we shouldn't, they shouldn't be eating shark fin soup because it's affecting most of their population. So this is a big problem if shark fin is going down, that's great, however, the demand for manta rays is rising, and there aren't real regulations in place to stop this. So that's not a good thing. And of course, one of the other problems in this is when you're hunting a species, you hope, you know, when a fish, when a species becomes a fishery, you know, when you're allowed to actually fish it, you want to make sure it's sustainable. You don't want to affect species for one, you don't want to affect the species because you want to be able to fish it for a long time from a fishery standpoint, but from an actual ethical standpoint, you don't want to make the species go extinct. Like we have in with many other, many other species. Now unfortunately, the manta ray is not a species that is designed for sustainable fishery, especially because this manner is reproduced extremely slowly. They give birth to one pup every two to five years. That's not a lot. And they grow, you know, they could grow up to 2,000 pounds. So you're looking at a species that barely reproduces and grows up to 2,000 pounds. So it probably takes a while for it to get to adulthood where it can actually be sexually mature to actually reproduce. And then you're fishing them at an unsustainable level just for its meat and gill rakers. So not a good fishery to happen from a fishery standpoint, it just doesn't make sense. So we have to be careful of that. And that's going to affect the population is going to affect the significance. So that's something to look out for now, Peru and neighboring Ecuador where these species are found mostly have come up with a way to protect the fisheries. So the way the the the act would work or the way the fisheries protection would work is if there's an accidental snagging of a large ray, they'd have to be immediately put back immediately put back in the waters where they're found. So if you accidentally catch them, there's no reason to bring them in. You immediately you untangle them or you get rid of the fishing hook and then you put them back. So hopefully they will survive from then on. So you can't bring them back to the to the shore. You just got to essentially just keep them where they are. So essentially they have they want to make sure that one, these species are going to be there forever and to we're going to we're going to make sure that it's sustainable because there's also a big sustainable ecotourism industry that's developing for man arrays. Man arrays are becoming a very sought after species for divers to actually see in the ocean. And you know, we'll post a couple of videos to show you why because they're so massive and so magnificent that to see one of these species out in the ocean is almost like seeing a whale shark. You just can't believe your eyes. And that's going to be important for an ecotourism industry, especially for Peru and Ecuador, who can really make they already have a lot of natural features like mountains and you know, Ecuador is a big stop for the Galapagos, you know, another ecotourism phenomenon. So these are places that could be known for ecotourism, known for protecting their environment. And now that they're protecting the man arrays, this will be this would be amazing. So in other words, these countries, not only Ecuador and Peru, have a very good reason why they should protect these species, not just for the ethical reason of making sure that these species are protected just because you don't want them to go to extinct. But because there's there could be a great ecotourism industry that's growing for these species for people to swim with these species, put regulations in place, and then it can be a nice sustainable industry of tourism that would complement their other natural features. So it's a great way to do this just in general for these for these countries. And of course, other countries where these are found. Now one thing with the man arrays is that you have a species that can travel thousands of kilometers just like you have with a great white shark that we covered last week, just what you have with whale sharks, they cover a lot of ocean, which means they cover a lot of boundaries and a lot of economic, exclusive economic zones, EEZs, where exclusive economic zones are the zones where countries actually have jurisdiction over protection. So you know, so it's important for Peru to protect this important for the neighboring Ecuador to protect them is born for all these countries who have man arrays that come within their EEZ to actually protect them. So that's why there's going to be so many countries that are going to be involved in this protection. Now Peter Knight, the executive director of wild aid is glad that there's a lot of countries including Indonesia who have really put in these protections. There's a huge, there was a huge natural marine protected area that was implemented last year in Indonesia to protect man array habitat, which is fantastic. We've talked about it before here on the podcast. Now we do you do have to be careful in those situations because the migration route to get to that protected area or to get to that nursery habitat that they found is actually open for hunting and the man arrays actually have to go through that area before they get to the marine protected area. So of course, not everything is perfect, but as we get more research done and we understand these species better in their patterns, then we can protect them more efficiently. Peter Knight, executive director of wild aid is hoping for that more countries will follow, even though there's some countries have already followed and protecting these species, particularly India and Sri Lanka, where giant man arrays are also found. Now there's also another array that is in this area that are in these areas called, I believe it's the modular array, but let me just, let me just make sure here I'm looking up the article, Mobula Rays. These regulations don't apply to Mobula Rays, which is a similar species, but it's also facing declines. So other species need to be protected, it's not just the giant oceanic manta ray. We need to protect all different types of man arrays. We need to find out each species, their distribution, where they're found, where they go, why they go there and then protect them and protect those areas to make sure that we have great protection on these species because we don't want to, these are gentle giants. These are like fish in the, you know, they're not fish, they're like, they're like birds of the sea, giant birds of the sea. And it's important to protect these as they are a top predator, they filter out plankton, they're just kind of like marine mammals in terms of what they eat and how they move and in terms of their giant size and their energy restrictions and whatnot. They're just beautiful animals, just in general, we should have them in there. And the more research we can find them, the better. So today, or this week on research Thursday's, I'm going to try and find a man array research paper that tells us more about the man arrays so we can find out more. So today's, this week's going to be all about man arrays. Last week was all about gray white sharks. This week's all about man arrays because I believe, and I strongly believe that we need to find out more about them. So I want to tell you more about them so that now we can focus on protecting them because now the shark fin soup or shark fins are reducing in the terms of trade, let's make sure that the man arrays don't also reduce with them. So we want to make sure that we protect them and we will go for there. We'll put wild AIDS website on our show notes, which will be www.speakupforblue.com/session92. So that's the show for today. Again, if you want to support the Speak Up For Blue podcast, you can do so by going to our patreon page at speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. You can support us there. All you have to do is just do a quick registration. You can support us on a monthly basis. So just make sure you know that when you put in your amount, it's on a monthly basis. And we really appreciate you get to find out what we're all about. We do some behind the scenes, I do some behind the scenes recordings and let you know what's coming up on the week for our patreon patrons and that's essentially what we do. We just provide information because we believe that's the first step in getting people involved in ocean conservation, making sure you're aware of what's happening, educate you on the ocean and hopefully will inspire you to do some action and protecting and implementing solutions for ocean issues in your daily life. So thank you very much for listening. You have been listening to Speak Up For Blue podcast. My name is Andrew Lewin. Happy Monday and happy conservation. [Music]