 |
| The ventral side of manta 11 (nicknamed “Manta V” because of its distinctive markings). |
Today was day 1
of Team Manta, and what a day it was. In total, we saw 11 manta rays. We were
able to deploy acoustic tags on three of those rays and got video footage of 6
of them. Making all this manta spotting happen requires quite the production.
We deployed in the ship’s rescue boat with a team of five: our chief scientist,
our expert tagger TA, our bosun who piloted the boat, and two students. Once we
arrived at the channel, all eyes turn to the water where every dark shape looks
like a manta. To get an underwater view, we take turns hanging on to the side
of the boat while snorkeling. Onboard, we have acoustic tags and GoPro cameras
at the ready.
“MANTA!” the
shout goes up and we spring into action. GoPros start rolling, tags are passed
over the side and everyone dives for the manta. We only have a few split
seconds before the ray will disappear again into the murky waters. Confusion
and coughing up seawater are common occurrences, but by the end of long hours
of motoring back and forth along the channel, we had been wildly more
successful than I had imagined we possibly could be on our very first day.
Tomorrow, we
will deploy acoustic receivers that detect the specific frequency emitted by
the tags we deployed today. This will give us real-time data about manta
movements through the channel. All of the mantas we observed today appeared to
be transiting out of the channel, so I am especially curious about when the
mantas enter the lagoon. We also plan to deploy more acoustic tags and continue
to photograph the ventral (underside) of the manta. Like a whale’s tail, a
manta’s ventral spots are individual to each ray so capturing footage of the
bottom of mantas is helping researchers around the world to identify the mantas
they see.
We head out
again bright and early tomorrow and then will have a few more manta spotting
sessions before we depart Palmyra on Friday evening. Check out the pictures
below for some stills from today’s Team Manta deployment!
Cheers,
-John
No comments:
Post a Comment