Maldives Manta Madness

November 2020

After a long off season, the Baa Atoll team of the Maldivian Manta Ray Project were unsure whether returning to the field was going to be an option this year. Our main research site, Hanifaru Bay MPA was still closed and the research boat was dry docked. The manta season had started and the team were still spread across the globe eager to get back out in the water! August came around and with the help of some wonderful donations it was time to see the Maldivian mantas again, and they did not disappoint!

Since research restarted the mantas have put on many a show with multiple days of over 100 sometimes even 150 mass feeding in Hanifaru Bay. The feeling of meeting mantas in these numbers is like no other and the excitement keeps us going in the water for as many hours as the mantas feed. Not only have the mantas been showing up in numbers they have been joined on more than one occasion by whale sharks! The team have had multiple days with both mantas and whale sharks but recently were treated to not one but three whale sharks feeding at the same time!!

Feeding mantas is a crazy spectacle to see but cleaning mantas is a totally different experience and is much slower and calmer. The cleaning stations in eastern Baa Atoll have been very active in the most recent few weeks of research. Some days there has been around 40 individuals visiting in the space of a two-hour survey at one of the local cleaning stations! Some of the team’s favourite encounters are with cleaning mantas as we get to spend more time with some of the individuals and really get to observe their interactions.

Sometimes people ask us if we ever get tired of going out each day even when the weather is bad and the answer is always the same, no because every day and every survey is different and we never know what we are going to encounter! We look forward to seeing what the last month of the 2020 season brings.