![]() ![]() Oceanic manta rays are a challenging species to study in part because they tend to spend their time in offshore locations that are hard for researchers to access, and their visitation patterns can be unpredictable.īut in the late 1990s, researchers from Proyecto Mantas Ecuador discovered that a population of oceanic manta rays aggregate in August and September each year around Isla de la Plata off the coast of Ecuador, where they are relatively easy to locate and study. The new study was led by Proyecto Mantas Ecuador of Fundación Megafauna Marina del Ecuador, a conservation organization based in Ecuador, in collaboration with The Manta Trust, the Marine Megafauna Foundation and the Ocean Ecology Lab at OSU's Marine Mammal Institute, which is led by Stewart. The biggest threat to oceanic manta rays is commercial fishing, both as the target of some fisheries and as unintentional bycatch in many others. Endangered Species Act in 2018, and in 2019 their threat category increased from vulnerable to endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List. Oceanic manta rays were listed as threatened under the U.S. They are filter feeders that eat large quantities of krill and other zooplankton and tend to live in small subpopulations in tropical, subtropical and temperate waters, spending much of their time in the open ocean. Oceanic manta rays are the largest species of ray, with wingspans that can reach more than 20 feet. In this area, we've estimated that the population is more than 22,000 mantas, which is unprecedented." In other regions, we typically have population estimates of 1,000 to 2,000 animals, which makes this species very vulnerable. "It's clear that something different is happening here," Stewart said. “We just beat the world record,” Gipe said when he looked at the final measurements.The findings, just reported in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, indicate that while other populations of oceanic manta rays are typically small and vulnerable to human impacts, this population is large and potentially quite healthy, said Joshua Stewart, an assistant professor with the Marine Mammal Institute in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences and a co-author of the paper. They were impressed with the size of the fish, and Corey Brossman, who recently hauled in a 180-pound class ray, said they needed to weigh this one as it was much larger yet. “It doesn’t get much easier than that, as far as the end result,” he said about the ray swimming directly toward their vessel.ĭare to try?: eFoil riders make waves, but not wakes, on Pennsylvania waterways ![]() Bowfishing arrows are attached to cords to allow the anglers to reel in the fish. The heavy creature then swam back to the boat where the group was able to pull it up on deck with a harpoon and gaffs. ![]() The ray sprung out of the water, allowing two other bow anglers also on the boat and Corey Brossman to each make a followup shot before it swam back out about 50 yards. ![]() When the fish turned from the boat, Gipe released his arrow and made a clean shot, striking the fish in the head. Opportunities in Pa.: Bowfishing in Pennsylvania for carp, suckers, catfish “I thought it was bluefish,” he said about seeing a flash in the water ― and then the triangle shape that signaled a large ray. Gipe said they saw some bluefish, and their boat was out from shore where they normally don’t see butterfly ray. The water was wavy and windy when fishing started June 30. That record was then broken again in 2021. “We’ve been out a couple times,” he said, including the time Corey Brossman set the world record at 204 pounds just more than a year ago. He spends his summer at the beach in Delaware and became friends with the Brossmans, who are based in Dagsboro, Sussex County. “I’ve been bowfishing since I was a teenager,” he said about going a few times a year for carp in Pennsylvania streams. Gipe is a seasoned angler with a previous best butteryfly ray of 153 pounds. ![]()
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