March 2019

Audrey Cartraud reports on her explorative mission in Raa atoll with Simon Hilbourne, both Research Officers for our Maldivian Manta Ray Project. Armed with their fins and cameras, these guys are already making some exciting discoveries after only two weeks… and taking some stunning photos as they go!

Earlier this year, Simon and I started a two month scoping project in the south west of Raa atoll. Raa atoll is located in the west of the Maldives just north of Baa atoll, home of the famous Hanifaru Bay. We already know a lot about the amazing manta ray population in Baa atoll thanks to the long running monitoring programme at our main project site located at Four Seasons Landaa Giravaaru. Daily surveys of the area during manta season from June to November have identified 2025 individuals from over 34,000 sightings!

The situation is different in Raa atoll. So far, we have only received manta sightings from citizen science and infrequent diving expeditions run in the area, accounting for a total of just 1100 sightings and 550 individuals identified. By having a Manta Trust project in the area, within the last few weeks we have already seen these numbers start to rise and we are hoping it will keep going that way. It is the first time a Manta Trust project has been based in Raa and our peak manta season here will run from December to April during the north east monsoon. During the off season, we will still be able to find manta rays on the east side of the atoll, we will just have to travel a little bit further away.

The scoping project has been very successful so far, and after only two weeks we have already identified 83 different mantas of which 24 are new to our database, including 12 pups! We have identified four main locations where mantas can be spotted and will hopefully discover more in the next few weeks as our adventure continues. We are still identifying new mantas every day we spend in the water which is very exciting!

Once the scoping project is complete, two research scientists from Manta Trust will take over starting from July/August 2019. The establishment of a Manta Trust project in this atoll will add greatly to our database as we will start to have more consistent data from this region. This project shows there is so much more to discover about manta ray population in the Maldives. In fact, being so close to Hanifaru Bay which is considered to have the greatest aggregation of manta rays in the world and has already been heavily monitored, and yet still identifying new individuals every day means there must be so much more out there! It just goes to show the importance of expanding our research project sites into new locations for unlocking the secrets of the Maldivian manta ray population.