Raa Atoll 2023 Season Secrets
May 2023
Raa atoll is located in the mid-west of the Maldives just north of Baa atoll, home of the famous Hanifaru Bay. Back in 2019, the story of Raa was only just starting to be written after a small unit of the Manta Trust team ventured to the southwest of the atoll on an explorative scoping mission.
Over a period of two months, the team unlocked a promising manta ray population around four main sighting locations in this region, including Maamunagau lagoon.
When Audrey, a member of the Raa Atoll scoping team, stated “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”, she was spectacularly correct!
The Raa Atoll research boat alongside Raa’s manta rays. ©Emily Hoad
Since then the Manta Trust team have established a base at Intercontinental Maamunagau Resort and for the past four years has been unlocking the secrets of this special lagoon and neighbouring sites. Hosting year-round sighting potential, the resident manta researchers are constantly identifying new individuals in parallel with a returning population of juvenile and adult manta rays alike.
With peak season running from January to March, as each December approaches, the energy in the Marine Centre only rises. “Any day now!”, “this could be it!” and “kobaa madi?” (Colloquially translating to ‘seen manta?’) become common utterances and quivers of excitement set in as the premise of heightened manta sightings unfold.
The vast Maamunagau lagoon. ©Emily Hoad
2023 has been no exception! The first quarter of the year kicked off to a ‘manta-stic’ start with over 1362 sightings of reef manta rays in the south west of Raa. In continued dedication, the Raa Manta Trust team have conducted over 829 surveys across this region to further investigate the crucial zones of frequent and repeat manta utility.
Encompassing modern, fundamental research techniques such as aerial drone surveillance, in-situ photographic identification (PID) and remote underwater video (RUV) to name a few, the team deduced that Maamunagau lagoon continues to be a key area for feeding and cleaning reef mantas with 85% of encounters being repeat sightings; within the season alone!
Just topping half of the confirmed individuals were males, with a wonderful number of returning mature (and multiple heavily pregnant!) females frequenting Maamunagau lagoon.
A reef manta ray feeding in Maamunagau lagoon. ©Emily Hoad
Spending almost all day, six days a week in the ocean is a wonderful experience and it is no wonder that you get to know some of the ‘local’ mantas really well. Manta rays are highly intelligent and charismatic animals, exhibiting different behaviours and personalities.
A couple of individuals have captured the hearts of the research team, with ‘Auds’ being the highly frequent Maamunagau Manta Spa (cleaning station) Queen and ‘Lenny’, the Travelled Survivor; having cruised ~400km from a neighbouring northern atoll to find refuge in the protected lagoon waters after recovering from net entanglement and surviving multiple predatory shark bites.
‘Lenny’ the manta ray, who found refuge in Maamunagau lagoon after being rescued from fishing line entanglement by the Manta Trust team. ©Jasmine Corbett
The team were ecstatic this year to see the return of these majestic animals and were lucky to witness extraordinary manta breaches, some never-seen-before young-of-year curious juveniles, multiple courtship trains and mass feeding events! Maamunagau’s 2023 peak season has set the bar high for 2024 and as the mantas start to disperse with the approaching monsoon shift, the team look forward to encountering them elsewhere across the atoll, until they return again next year. Watch this space!
The majestic manta rays of Raa Atoll. ©Emily Hoad
EMILY HOAD
Raa Atoll Assistant Project Manager