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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=ES link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:20.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Small steps aim to make a large ocean safer for rays<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>by </span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/by/marianne-messina/"><span lang=EN-US style='color:windowtext;text-decoration:none'>Marianne Messina</span></a></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'> <span lang=EN-US><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>24 February 2020 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/small-steps-aim-to-make-a-large-ocean-safer-for-rays/<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Purse seine fishing nets may be set for tuna, but they trap whatever fish swim into them, including manta and devil rays. As the net tightens, rays will panic and thrash. Trauma and death by suffocation in the crush of fish are likely outcomes. But even those rays lucky enough to survive the net face further challenges. Tuna fishers don’t really want a 1,600-kilogram (3,500-pound) oceanic manta (<i>Mobula birostris</i>) flopping around on deck, but large mantas aren’t easy to put back into the ocean. Crews might hoist a ray overboard by hooking it through its gill plates or running a cable through a hole punched in its fin. This may explain why a 2016 New Zealand </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aqc.2641" target="_blank"><span lang=EN-US style='color:blue'>study</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'> found that less than half of rays released alive survive.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>New rules that apply to a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean aim to improve manta and devil rays’ chances of surviving encounters with fishing boats. In December 2019, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://www.wcpfc.int/doc/cmm-2019-05/conservation-and-management-measure-mobulid-rays-caught-association-fisheries-wcpfc" target="_blank"><span lang=EN-US style='color:blue'>adopted a measure</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'> prohibiting fishers from targeting the rays or keeping the ones they catch accidentally, and mandating that they release living rays in a manner “that will result in the least possible harm.” The multilateral body manages fisheries in the region and includes some of the world’s largest tuna-fishing nations among its members: Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Manta and devil rays, </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/182/1/50/3886052" target="_blank"><span lang=EN-US style='color:blue'>newly grouped</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'> into eight species in the genus <i>Mobula</i>, are generally large-bodied planktivores that live in tropical and temperate waters around the world. Females usually give birth to a single pup every one to five years, making mobulids vulnerable to overfishing. Growth in demand for their gill plates and anecdotal reports of decreasing ray populations have scientists worried.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The WCPFC mobulid protection measure comes five years after its initial introduction as a set of non-binding guidelines, according to biologist Wetjens Dimmlich, director of fisheries management for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA). The FFA helped push the measure’s adoption, with support from all of the FFA’s 17 member nations — half the entire WCPFC membership. Passing the measure was an accomplishment because it represented the commitment of major fishing nations such as Japan and the Philippines to upholding its provisions at their ports and on ships flagged to them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Several factors contributed to the measure’s adoption, Dimmlich said. It helped that the Indian Ocean’s fisheries management body had just implemented a similar measure; that the region encompasses some of the most lucrative (and growing) manta tourism in the world; and that WCPFC’s small member country of Palau, a dive-tourism destination, had just preserved 80% of its national waters </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/01/01/palau-national-marine-sanctuary-goes-into-effect" target="_blank"><span lang=EN-US style='color:blue'>as a marine sanctuary</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Tuna boats will bear the brunt of the measure’s stipulations. Guidelines for getting trapped rays safely back into the sea include tending immediately to live animals, careful handling (gripping fins not gills), untangling the animals from gear, and using special equipment rather than the ubiquitous hooks and gaffs. The measure also encourages fishers to work with satellite-tagging programs that track the rays for research purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The eastern Pacific’s fisheries management body, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), enacted similar protections for mobulids in 2015. All IATTC member tuna boats of more than 363 tons (which is most commercial boats) have onboard observers, so the fishery is poised to collect useful scientific and compliance data.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The IATTC has been honing its conservation protocols since the 1960s, mainly to protect dolphins. Boats are set up with conveyors at the sorting point that conduct unwanted animals directly back to sea. But for many boats under the WCPFC, where the work of conveyors is still done by humans and efficiency has been a higher priority than rescuing bycatch, implementation remains a work in progress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>“Most fishery measures take considerable time to implement,” said Daniel Fernando, a director of Blue Resources Trust, a Sri Lankan NGO that supported the mobulid regulations in the Indian Ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The devil ray in the details<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Many individual islands and states in the western and central Pacific had their own protections for the charismatic reef manta (<i>M. alfredi</i>), beloved by tourists. But devil rays don’t generally draw tourism revenue like mantas do, according to Guy Stevens, founder and chief executive of the U.K.-based NGO Manta Trust, who said he was encouraged by their inclusion in the new WCPFC measure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>Stevens said he hopes tourism will eventually foster the same widespread love for mobulids that dolphins receive, where a single undercover photo of abuse can cause a Twitter cyclone of outrage. He said manta and devil rays need the same stringent level of protection that the IATTC has provided for dolphins: Dolphins have bycatch quotas, and onboard observers document each ship’s compliance. Fishing boats steer clear of dolphins when planning routes. Crew members jump into the water to guide trapped dolphins over the top of purse seine nets because they know that tuna will go low, but dolphins will stay near the top — the kind of information yet to be gathered about manta and devil rays.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>As a result of the IATTC’s 1999 dolphin conservation agreement, the </span><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'><a href="https://www.iattc.org/DolphinSafeENG.htm" target="_blank"><span lang=EN-US style='color:blue'>management body says</span></a></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'> bycatch rates for dolphins dropped from 132,000 in 1986 to less than 1,000 in recent years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>But to duplicate that level of success for mantas and devil rays, scientists and fishers have much to learn about them. For instance, scientists don’t have much data on mobulids’ migratory paths, or the locations of their feeding grounds and cleaning stations that could help fishing boats avoid them. Any increase in tagging and documentation resulting from the new measure will help scientists fill those and other information gaps, as well as understand what’s working and what isn’t in the safe-handling guidelines.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>As long as fisheries management bodies show a willingness to work with the science, Stevens said he expects the various regional manta and devil ray protection measures to undergo continuous refining as the data come in. So far, according to Stevens, managers are willing. The IATTC has already scheduled a meeting with manta scientists, a year from now, to assess and refine the mobulid protection measures it implemented in 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The WCPFC measure is a doorway to answers. Will more gently handled and quickly released rays have any better chances of surviving getting caught? What kind of compliance, observation and enforcement practices are realistic for the western and central Pacific?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>The measure will take effect in January 2021. While it could be a long wait for manta and devil rays, it gives scientists and NGOs a year to gather more data. According to Dimmlich, the commission requested a report on mobulids based on observer-gathered data later this year, and if feasible, a detailed assessment of the region’s mobulid stock by 2023.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>“We have to go through the scientific process,” Stevens said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>And if the measure doesn’t look like it is saving mobulids?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";mso-fareast-language:ES'>“We go back to them and say this is not good enough.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br /> <table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;">
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