Manta rays headed for extinction due to TCM demand
Photographer: Michael Buckley
Exhibit Title: Manta rays headed for extinction due to TCM demand
Location: Sri Lanka
Mantas under threat from TCM
The Ocean is under serious attack—from over-fishing, illegal fishing, coral bleaching, acidification, plastic pollution and deep-sea mining —to name a few issues. These issues will take decades to resolve, but there is one issue that can be resolved in a matter of months: Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM is responsible for massive culling of sharks, manta rays, seahorses and other precious marine species, for use in bogus ‘medicine’ — none proven to have any health benefits whatsoever.
Manta Rays are filter-feeders: they use their feathery gill plates to strain out plankton after ingesting large volumes of seawater. This remarkable filtering ability has been touted as nothing short of miraculous by Chinese medicine vendors--who are promoting “health tonics”, brewed from dried manta gill plates. Chinese medicine vendors promote the belief that by eating a particular species, the consumer can acquire the super-powers associated with that species--which is a load of hogwash. Having depleted the world of sharks to make sharkfin soup, they are moving along to the next victim: manta rays.
Prior to 2010, there was very little fishing of mantas and mobulas because of lack of commercial value. Because of their cartilage, mantas are not suitable as restaurant fare. So fishermen who caught mantas and mobulas in their nets would release them. However, that all changed when Chinese purveyors of TCM came knocking, offering high prices for manta gill-rakers.
Today, annual capture of manta and devil rays by Sri Lankan artisanal fishing fleets exceeds the estimated global capture in all global large industrial fisheries combined. Which is to say that Sri Lanka has emerged as the number one fishery of mantas and mobulas world-wide: their dried gill plates end up in Guangzhou, China. It is highly disturbing to see these magnificent creatures chopped into pieces. Mantas never harm humans, but humans slaughter mantas--to feed the whims of bogus Chinese medicine vendors. One facet that TCM pirates hawk is that manta gill-rakers are good for ‘women’s problems’ such as breast-feeding. In fact, the opposite appears to be true: manta gill-rakers may contain mercury, which can set back human health. The fishing of mantas in Sri Lanka is mostly driven by the demand for dried gill plates in Chinese medicine, since manta meat is considered low-grade--and cannot compare to species like yellowfin tuna. A dead manta may sell for US$150 in Sri Lanka.
But the same manta--alive--is worth exponentially more as a key draw for dive-tourism in places like the Maldives. A recent study of manta ray dive-tourism worldwide estimates it is worth US$140 million annually, compared with perhaps US$5 million annually for fisheries income.
To find out more about the devastating impact of TCM on marine species, go Michael Buckley's digital photobook "Planet Ocean Blues", which is the basis for a 40-minute documentary of the same title.
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