Green Blog: Ghostlike and Vulnerable, the Manta Ray Finds a Friend

On Sunday, 177 member nations will gather in Bangkok at the 16th Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to decide whether to accord international protection to a growing roster of plants and animals.

If you were one of the species up for listing, it would be hard to find a better friend than Shawn Heinrichs.

Mr. Heinrichs, a conservationist and underwater filmmaker based in Boulder, Colo., has devoted much of the last four years to bringing attention to the plight of the manta ray, a bat-shaped sea creature that is facing increasing fishing pressures and that some say is threatened with extinction.

Working with the Hong Kong-based investigative photojournalist Paul Hilton, Mr. Heinrichs has documented the manta ray?s rapid decline throughout much of the world. Last year the two wrote ?a major report on how overfishing has decimated manta populations in Asia and elsewhere. The report, issued with backing from the conservation organizations Shark Savers and WildAid, showed that both manta rays and mobula rays were being driven to the brink with ?breathtaking speed.

The report cites growing demand from southern China, where ray gill rakers, used by the manta ?to filter food from the water, are marketed as a supposed cure for ailments ranging from chicken pox to impotence.

Commerce in gill rakers is poorly documented, but it is estimated that 90 percent of the trade takes place in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India, with the vast majority of gill rakers then ending up in dry fish markets in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. The report puts the annual volume of sales of dried manta ray gill rakers at around 46,000 pounds, representing some 4,652 manta rays.

Manta rays are thought to be especially vulnerable to exploitation because they are slow to mature and have low reproductive rates. Female manta rays produce just one pup after a yearlong pregnancy and typically produce offspring only every two to three years. It is thought that they can live up to 80 years. The report galvanized conservationists, including the British billionaire Richard Branson, who lent his name and image to supporting manta rays soon afterward. But Mr. Heinrichs did not stop there.

As an underwater filmmaker who has shot documentary television for National Geographic as well as for conservation groups, he produced a short film about the manta ray trade called ?Manta Ray of Hope? that digs deep into the reasons ?that the manta ray is in such steep decline.

The video, while at times a sublime display of the manta ray?s grace and beauty underwater, can also be hard to watch. Mr. Heinrichs sails with local hunters who spear the animals with long metal barbs and then drag them ashore, where they are hacked to pieces and their gill rakers are removed and placed in baskets. In many cases, he said, the carcasses are cast back into the bloody water.

Mr. Heinrichs and Mr. Hilton then travel to the dry fish markets of southern China, where they find the gill rakers are being sold as a tonic in traditional medicine. Often they are cooked in a broth with seahorses and pipefish, a concoction that Mr. Heinrichs referred to as ?endangered species soup.?

In the film, manta ray gill rakers can be seen clumped together by the thousands in bags in the marketplaces that he and Mr. Hilton visited. Yet the market for manta ray gills is relatively new. ?Ten years ago the market for manta gills didn?t even exist,? said Susan Lieberman, director of international policy at the Pew Charitable Trusts. ?This is a new trend for tonic in Chinese markets.?

If the animals gain protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, their trade will have to be regulated by the countries from which they are exported. Shipments of manta gill rakers or other parts will require permits, and the exporting country will need to assure that hunting of the species is sustainable.

Conservation groups that have lent their support to protecting manta rays say there is a good chance that Cites will list the two known manta species ? the reef manta ray, or Manta alfredi, and the giant manta ray, or Manta ? ?as protected under an international treaty. Passage of the proposal, sponsored by Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador and supported by the United States, requires a two-thirds majority vote.

While giant manta rays gained protection in 2011 under the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, conservation groups say that ?a Cites listing will establish broader protections. ?We?re hopeful because so many developing countries are on board this time,? Ms. Lieberman said.

Mr. Heinrichs hopes the film will help sway minds ?at the Cites meeting, which continues through March 14. But a listing remains far from certain, so he has redoubled his cinematic efforts to bring attention to the animal?s plight. This week he posted a new video to Vimeo called ?Mantas Last Dance.?

It is a strange but alluring mix of conservation message and performance art. Shot at night in Kona, Hawaii, and set to plangent music, it features Hannah Fraser, a dancer and mermaid model, who hovers beneath the ocean?s surface amid bright underwater lights as six-foot manta rays glide past like ghosts.

?Clearly this an animal to be loved and appreciated,? Mr. Heinrichs said.

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/ghostlike-and-vulnerable-the-manta-finds-a-friend/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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