Tourist Trap

Manta ray in the Sea of Cortez...and on local menus in Mexico. Photo: Paul Ahuja

I spent the last week on the Sea of Cortez with 19 other Aspen Institute Catto Fellows. I was fortunate enough to receive the two-year energy and the environment fellowship along with environmental leaders from all over the world and all professional sectors. Our latest session took us to La Paz.

On our first night in Mexico, I met an old friend, former Heal the Bay educator and marine biologist Paul Ahuja. Paul left the States to go to La Paz to study manta rays, perhaps the most graceful creature in the sea. Paul told me that he identified through photo-documentation more than 50 different individual mantas off La Paz. Within two years there were none. The mantas have not returned to La Paz in three years.

A Giant Problem

The Georgia Aquarium welcomed a juvenile, 9-foot manta ray to its 6.2-million gallon tank this week. This is the same aquarium that had two whale sharks die on them last year. The Atlanta-based fish tank also charges folks nearly $300 a pop to scuba with the world’s largest fish. The manta, named Nandi, will share the tank with the two 13-to-15-foot long whale sharks: Yushan and Taroko. Clearly, the home ranges for the cartilaginous leviathans is a hell of a lot bigger than the ginormous fish tank, yet the trend to capture and display some of the world’s largest animals continues.