The Manta Trust is Going Fish Free this February

January 2020

The biggest threat to mantas and their mobula ray cousins is from targeted fisheries and accidental bycatch from fishing fleets. That’s why the Manta Trust is getting behind and supporting the Fish Free February campaign. We want you to join us this February in cutting seafood from your diet and helping raise awareness of the threats from commercial fisheries.

The scale of manta and mobula ray fisheries is something that is hard to quantify. Manta Trust affiliate projects are working in some of the largest known mobula fishing areas around the world including Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Peru to try and understand the scale of the problem and work towards solving it. Often fishermen we speak to in these areas report that they are catching less and less mantas and mobulas, but not for a lack of trying! To us, this is a clear sign that manta and mobula populations around these areas are in decline.

Most of these are small scale local fisheries and although they are certainly having a detrimental impact on populations, there could be a far bigger threat out there. Commercial fisheries on the high seas (international waters) could be catching far greater numbers of mobulas and oceanic mantas in their nets. Currently, tuna fishing fleets only need to report the number or ‘rays’ caught. With no distinction between groups of species it’s impossible to say how many mobulas are being caught. This is a key area the Manta Trust are interested in exploring more to understand what is going on in the high seas fisheries.

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The demand for mobula and manta rays in fisheries is mostly driven by the high price of the gill plates. These are exported to Southeast Asia where they are used in Chinese Medicine. However, even if there was no demand for gill plates, mobulas and manta rays would still be caught in huge numbers and discarded as bycatch. The issue of bycatch effects nearly every species in the ocean. Tuna longlines kill millions of sea birds, turtles, and sharks annually, nets of various types kill countless mobulas, dolphins and other non-target fish, and bottom trawling decimates population off bottom dwelling marine species. Bycatch is just one of the many impacts fisheries have on the oceans and is reason enough for the Manta Trust to support going fish free this February to reduce our seafood consumption and raise awareness of the issues.

To learn more about some of the other threats from fisheries on the oceans visit the Fish Free February website below and be sure to join us by pledging to go #fishfreefebruary!