riding on mantas and other animals

[Mantasscareme]

I would have to say that your interaction is perfectly acceptable, Stivo. "Harassment" is not a term that comes to mind with your particular story.

Manta behaviour around people can be weird. There really aren't any rigorous studies to explain what their sometimes-interest with divers is. They have teeny, primitive brains, so its likely something to do with cleaning behaviour or feeding.

I'm really curious as to how you come up with this bullcrap. Manta rays have one of the largest brains compared to body size in nature, except for dolphins and great apes. While they don't have any known social structure, it's been proven that they interact with people out of curiosity. Recent encounters at San Benedicto Island, south of Cabo have shown that they can distinguish between people visually, and prefer certain people to others, definately something that indicates a higher intelligence.

 

[jepuskar]

We don't belong down there to being with, so anyone who interacts with sealife and can justify it to make themselves feel as they are doing good is just plain wrong.

There are few exceptions to this, but overall it holds true IMNSHO.

 

[Tiggs]

not really a sound theory though unless you are happy for us to screw with anything on land as we do "belong" there?

I dont think people are saying they "Do good"...just that its not having a negative affect on the animals.

 

[Damselfish]

I don't think the right answer is always easy to determine, and things often get decided in a knee jerk fashion or by people not looking at all the facts in a non-biased fashion. (True of most things really.) Diving tourism can help a local economy and provide different jobs where people might otherwise be fishing critters or trashing the environment in some way that pays them. Interaction/viewing of whatever sort may not help critters directly. But in many cases there is little or no harm and if allowing the interaction winds up preventing some of the fishing and trashing, then it might be a win.

There is a commuter train station west of Boston without enough parking (like most of them) for all the people that want to use it. There have been attempts to move the station a bit to where they can have more parking. It has never happened because there was some critter in a vernal pool in a far corner of the land, and because people said it would have disturbed a Great Blue Heron rookery nearby. Environmental interests killed it. But, the station could have been done without affecting the pool, they were going to use a fraction of the land and the rest would have been preserved. The herons were already perfectly happy with the trains going by and anyway they've long since moved on (in the natural circle of things, the tall dead trees in a beaver swamp where the herons liked to nest eventually fall over and the herons leave.) And public transit is generally seen as a good thing for the environment. So which would actually have been the right choice for the environment?

 

[Santa]

not really a sound theory though unless you are happy for us to screw with anything on land as we do "belong" there?

I dont think people are saying they "Do good"...just that its not having a negative affect on the animals.

I think this goes beyond touch or not.

Realize that the moment we hit the water we are to some extent interacting with that environment. We can strive to minimize our impact by not touching stuff - but we are there. Sharks or barracudas may mistake us for food, we may involuntarily bounce into things, loose bits of gear, bubbles may cause fish to leave a site or hide in our shadows you get my drift - we interact.

The question I suppose is what individual values/purposes and what level of experience with marine life guides this interaction - and how frequently it occurs at a specific site. The question that comes before touch-or-not is:

What is my role here as a diver in the first place? What am I striving to acheive or avoid on a specific dive and what should be my consequent level of engagement?

The presence of man at sea is not inherently un-natural. Coastal fishermen, for example have been interacting safely with marine life for millennia. In that case it's not the activity in itself that's potentially a problem but rather the scale and method (technology). Most people condone some interaction in the name of science, or preservation. Some find swimming with dolphins therapeutic and okay.

On one hand i'd go for a more nuanced view. On the other I recognize the need for simple, easy-to-understand measures to guide diving as an industry and a tourist atttraction.

I say if there's no point beyond personal gratification, don't touch - And for us tourists there usually is none.

 

[captnkurt]

I agree with Stivos remarks here and it sounds like it is based on experience, not on opinion. I live here in Vallarta, and sure I just started diving in April, but in the 42 dives I have logged, I think we have encountered mantas on probably 30 different occasions. No, I'm not and expert, nor marine biologist, but I am starting to see a pattern to these magnificent creatures. When they actually hon in on one diver and countinously follow that diver , at times stopping in front, and waiting for him/her to catch up, to me it looks like yes they want to interact. Many other times, we catch a fleeting glimpse as they see us and turn away. Yeah, don't chase these guys down, THEY DON'T WANT TO PLAY!!! Just last friday, I didn't touch, but just drafted along with a beautiful manta that I have named "mocho"(spanish for chopped off). This guy was missing about the top 1/6 of his left wingtip and obviously had adapted to the long-healed wound just fine. The drafting was going on for about 2 minutes and she took me down to a depth of 54ft and then turned to make another loop. I then peeled off and anticipated her path to take some more video of her. She turned, came right to me and glided merely inches over my chest and head, all the while, the camera rolling!!By all means use common sense, I havn't rode a manta to this point, but can't say I never will, it will depend on the situation. I won't preach right or wrong, seems like to much of that in the world today. Nice to see so many people on the side of the manta and everybody's opinion is right, otherwise they would not have written it!! Dive lots and dive safe

 

[captnkurt]

Recent encounters at San Benedicto Island, south of Cabo have shown that they can distinguish between people visually, and prefer certain people to others, definately something that indicates a higher intelligence.

Or a least as high as my intelligence!!

 

[Santa]

It's a beautilful thought but it seems to me that to "prefer certain people" implies a certain emotional content, some idea of what people is and the ability to distinguish oneself as an individual from ones surroundings.

I don't know squat about Mantas but although it's kinda sad I guess the idea just seems a little romantic to me.

Could be that they are just attracted to certain colours, contrasts or patterns of movement that trigger various instinctive reactions (no doubt joyful to the manta).

I'm not saying we cannot interact with animals. I just don't think we recognise each other at all most of the time especially in terms of motives. Come to think of it I once had a girlfriend ... oh never mind.

regards

 

[Diver Dennis]

I am in Puerto Vallarta and dive with captnkurt on a regular basis. One of the behaviors we have noticed recently is Mantas stopping at "cleaning stations" usually located over shallow rock formations. At Chimo this week we watched 2 Mantas slow to a stop over one particular formation, swimming just enough to keep stationary in the current. The King Angels would come up from underneath and start picking the sea lice off their backs, leaving what looked like kiss marks on the skin. We did not even attempt to ride these, one had the chopped off wing, because we knew they were stationary to be cleaned, not to offer rides. That said, we do ride certain Mantas on a regular basis. As santa said, I don't think they recognize who we are but what we are wearing and the colors.
One of the first encounters I had here with the Mantas was at El Morro where I ended up cutting 8 wraps of 100 lb test fishing line from a long liner off of a Manta that had followed me around for 2 dives. She let me take several hooks out of her and actually pull the line out from 8 inches deep in her front wing right beside her eye as she watched me. Although captnkurt was not on that dive he has heard accounts from the witnesses from Twin Dolphins, who can be contacted for verification. Obviously if she had decided to take off with all that fishing line in my hand, she could have done serious damage to the rest of my diving career if it had been wrapped around me.
These are huge creatures and can easily out distance or avoid divers riding them if they wanted. Is it OK to ride them? Everyone has their own opinion but if it is done responsibly it can, in my opinion, be done with out harming them.

 

[Mantasscareme]

It's a beautilful thought but it seems to me that to "prefer certain people" implies a certain emotional content, some idea of what people is and the ability to distinguish oneself as an individual from ones surroundings.

I don't know squat about Mantas but although it's kinda sad I guess the idea just seems a little romantic to me.

Could be that they are just attracted to certain colours, contrasts or patterns of movement that trigger various instinctive reactions (no doubt joyful to the manta).

I'm not saying we cannot interact with animals. I just don't think we recognise each other at all most of the time especially in terms of motives. Come to think of it I once had a girlfriend ... oh never mind.

regards

Now, archman corrected me and proved how much more he knows about fish brains than I do (really remarkable stuff, PM him, he'll tell you all about it). Where I got my theories about mantas was from (sadly enough) the Discovery Channel. I know that you can't believe everything you see on TV, but it's great stuff nonetheless. What they showed was that a film crew on San Benedicto Island tried an experiment to determine how mantas tell people apart. They had the same divers trade gear, and the mantas could still pick out their favorite playmate. But when they put tin foil over their masks (who's bright idea it was to scuba dive blindfolded, we'll probably never know), the mantas appeared to be confused. Logical conclusion: (gasp), could it be, that mantas are actually able to tell people apart by their eyes. Our modern neural science doesn't seem to think so. I personally think that there's more to living things than a well developed hindbrain and an inadequate forebrain (or visa versa with higher mammals). I'm probably being a little overly romantic right there, but, for me it's still a thought worth concidering.