Manta Rays · Research

Monthly Update for March

February 28, 20255 min read

Rain and rough seas slowed fieldwork at several sites this month, but our Závora team used the weather delays to build new monitoring infrastructure, the Florida team expanded its manta research south to Miami, and our Indonesia team worked with local schools and shared new findings on Nusa Penida’s manta ray population. We also report on whale sharks and young reef sharks at Mafia Island in Tanzania.

MMF

Indonesia

Ocean Talks on Research Findings

Ocean enthusiasts gathered at the Indo Ocean Research and Education Center to hear crucial findings about local manta populations. Janis shared her Master’s thesis results, which show increasing manta numbers in the Nusa Penida MPA through individual sight and resight data, while Thania presented evidence that Manta Point greatly exceeds its visitor capacity during peak season - important data for developing sustainable tourism practices.

Schools and Snorkeling: Teaching Conservation

The team kept busy with education work - hosting Wood School Bali students for two days of learning, snorkeling, and turtle data collection, and visiting SDN 2 Lembongan for English lessons and hands-on microplastics research workshops, and giving talks to University of Plymouth (opens in a new tab) students at Scuba Junkie Penida (followed by in-water turtle surveys). These programs are essential to build local support and capacity for marine conservation.

Indo Strategic Planning Session

MMF Indonesia rounded off the year with a team assessment to reflect on our achievements over 2024, discuss ways to improve our performance, and plan for the year ahead. Here’s to a fin-tastic 2025!

INDONESIA PROJECTS

MMF

Florida

Mantas in Miami: Expanding South

Despite rough winter conditions, the team ventured into Miami for exploratory surveys, finding Stevie Ray (Manta 192) far south of our usual study area. This discovery supports our planned research expansion south into Miami to learn more about manta habitat use in highly-urbanized areas.

Winter Waters Teeming with Life

Recent aerial surveys spotted 7 manta rays, a hammerhead shark, 8 turtles including a leatherback, multiple dolphin pods, and many many manatees! Boat surveys sighted other amazing wildlife as well, including mola mola, more hammerheads and turtles, spotted eagle rays, other sharks, and yet more manatees! On one survey, we also were able to remove a fishing line from an entangled turtle. We identified two new manta rays, bringing our total population up to 212.

Guitarfish Project Gains Momentum

The Atlantic Freckled Guitarfish project encountered 8 individuals this month, adding to our database of over 200 Atlantic Freckled Guitarfish. The team set up 7 new acoustic receivers and tagged one guitarfish, helping us track their movements and identify critical habitat. Divers and snorkelers can now contribute to this research by reporting sightings to [email protected] with: (1) your photos, (2) date and time of sighting/s, and (3) the location.

3,700 Students Join Ocean Journey

The team reached 3,700 students with lessons about manta rays and marine conservation through 2024, helping build the next generation of ocean advocates.

Florida projects

MMF

Mozambique

Závora Base Station Development

With rough weather keeping the Závora team out of the water, they grabbed this chance to construct a new base station for receiver deployment. The station will be deployed with a new receiver next month, strengthening our network for monitoring marine life movements along the Inhambane coast.

Growing Our Tofo Monitoring Team

Following that, Ed and Emily from Závora headed to Tofo to help Nilza with receiver changeovers and to train new research staff Dercio and Simão, who will manage the Tofo array in the future. Ongoing training of our research team in maintaining the passive acoustic tracking network is essential for the long-term success of this array, as our tags are designed to operate for 10+ years.

Persistent Manta Presence

Even with limited diving opportunities due to bad weather and low visitor numbers, both January dives in Závora had manta sightings, confirming they’re still around – yay!

MOZAMBIQUE PROJECTS

MMF

Around the World

Long-Term Friends: Mafia’s Whale Sharks

Jens Paulsen just finished this year’s whale shark monitoring season at Mafia Island. Together with Dr Jesse Cochran and the team from KAUST (opens in a new tab), they identified 33 different whale sharks, including some that have been seen at Mafia Island since our project began in 2012.

Following Mafia’s Baby Reef Sharks

Together with Rianne Laan and the team from Thanda Island, we have conducted the first BRUVS survey to count and identify individual blacktip reef sharks within the Shungimbili Island Marine Reserve. The area appears to be important for small pups, and monitoring this site over the coming year will examine this potential nursery area in more detail.

Leopard Sharks in Focus

MMF Research Associate Dr David Robinson and his team at Sundive Research (opens in a new tab) have identified almost 500 endangered leopard (zebra) sharks from Byron Bay, Australia. Read all about it in the Byron Coast Times (opens in a new tab).

It’s been a busy start to 2025 across our projects. From tracking marine giants to teaching the next generation of ocean guardians, every day brings us closer to our conservation goals. But there’s still so much more to do.

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