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Ocean Watch

In the battle to preserve wildlife, it sometimes seems like we aren't making any progress. But we are.

I recently read in this paper a news item from Dec. 25, 1951. It read: "Lifeguards speared and killed a 600-pound stingray at Kuhio Beach in about five feet of water. The fish apparently came over the seawall at high tide and was unable to return when the tide went out."

Today, most people would know that what the lifeguards killed was a manta ray, not a stingray. Stingrays grow to only about 140 pounds and measure 6 feet across. It's the mantas that get really big, weighing up to 3,000 pounds and measuring 24 feet across.

This mix-up of ray names is still a common one because to some people a ray is a ray. But there's a big difference between stingrays and manta rays besides size: Stingrays can sting you; manta rays can't. They have no stingers.

Another positive sign for wildlife is that lifeguards today would get help to try to save the ray, not kill it. They know that manta rays are harmless plankton eaters that neither bite, sting nor charge.

This was not common knowledge in the past. In 1919, National Geographic ran an article called "Devil-fishing in the Gulf Stream" in which the writer warns of devilfishes, a former name for mantas, grabbing a boat's anchor.

The author writes, "True to instinct, (the devilfish) clasps the chain tight by wrapping its tentacula (sic) horns or feelers about it, applies its tremendous strength, lifts the heavy chain as if it were a feather, and starts to sea with the anchor, chain and ship, to the amazement and terror of the crew."

Complete nonsense.

Manta rays have fins at the sides of their heads that resemble horns, but they aren't able to grab on to anything. Rather, the special fins guide planktonic animals toward the manta's open mouth as it swims slowly forward.

Snorkelers and divers go to great lengths these days to swim with manta rays. I once stationed myself just below the edge of a cliff at a famous dive site in Palau and watched manta rays glide overhead eating plankton.

If I harbored any secret fear of these enormous fish before then, I got over it that day. These graceful "fliers" looked like they were performing a water ballet and were totally indifferent to the human bubble-blowers directly beneath them.

My friends have snorkeled at night with manta rays that were attracted to the bright lights of a Kona Coast hotel. Those people and rays swam shoulder to shoulder like pairs of dive buddies.

Besides being big and looking odd, manta rays can startle people by occasionally leaping from the water. A Molokai angler told me that once, while fishing in his Boston Whaler, a manta ray threw itself into the air right next to him. It was so big, he said, that had the creature landed on his boat, it would have covered it completely.

This fisherman appreciated the beauty of this enormous animal and, as many of us would, treasured his close encounter.

Today, if a manta ray got trapped off Waikiki, here's what a reporter would likely be able to write: "Lifeguards, marine biologists and fishermen worked together to rescue a 15-foot-wide manta ray caught inside the seawall at Kuhio Beach. Hundreds of people lined the shore to watch as workers guided the harmless creature back to deep water. The crowd cheered as the uninjured ray swam off."

That's progress.