A.M. Costa Rica: Fourth Costa Rica news page


A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page
San José, Costa Rica, Wednesday, May 16, 2012, Vol. 12, No. 97

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Satellite study taps the secrets of the giant ocean manta ray

By the Wildlife Conservation Society news service

Using the latest satellite tracking technology, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Exeter, and the government of Mexico have completed a ground-breaking study on a mysterious ocean giant: the manta ray.

The research team has produced the first published study on the use of satellite telemetry to track the open-ocean journeys of the world’s largest ray, which can grow up to 25 feet in width. Researchers say the manta ray — listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature — has become increasingly threatened by fishing and accidental capture and now needs more protection.

The study was published in the online journal PLoS One.

“Almost nothing is known about the movements and ecological needs of the manta ray, one of the ocean’s largest and least-known species,” said Rachel Graham, lead author on the study and director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Gulf and Caribbean Sharks and Rays Program. “Our real-time data illuminate the previously unseen world of this mythic fish and will help to shape management and conservation strategies for this species.”

The research team attached satellite transmitters to manta rays off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula over a 13-day period. The tracking devices were attached to the backs of six individuals — four females, one male, and one juvenile.

“The satellite tag data revealed that some of the rays traveled more than 1,100 kilometers (nearly 700 miles) during the study period,” said Matthew Witt of the University of Exeter’s Environment and Sustainability Institute. “The rays spent most of their time traversing coastal areas plentiful in zooplankton and fish eggs from spawning events.”

Like baleen whales and whale sharks, manta rays are filter feeders that swim through clouds of plankton with mouths agape.

A.M. Costa Rica file photo

Manta rays are filter feeders that swim through clouds of plankton with mouths agape.

The research team also found that the manta rays spent nearly all their time within Mexico’s territorial waters (within 200 miles of the coastline), but only 11.5 percent of the locations gathered from the tagged rays occurred within marine protected areas. And the majority of ray locations were recorded in major shipping routes in the region; manta rays could be vulnerable to ship collisions.

“Studies such as this one are critical in developing effective management of manta rays, which appear to be declining worldwide,” said Howard Rosenbaum, Director of society’s Ocean Giant Program.

In spite of its malevolent, bat-like appearance, the manta ray — sometimes referred to as the devilfish — is harmless to humans and lacks the stinger of the better-known stingray. The manta ray possesses the highest brain to body ratio of all sharks and rays and gives birth to live young, usually one or two pups every one or two years. Manta rays are apparently declining in the Caribbean and in other tropical regions of the world’s oceans, in part because they are captured for shark bait and a demand for gill rakers (small, finger-like structures that filter out the ray’s minute zooplankton prey) in the traditional Chinese medicinal trade.

Police capture trio after home is invaded in Paso Ancho

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Fuerza Pública officers captured three home invasion suspects Monday night after bandits invaded a home in Paso Ancho.

The Fuerza Pública said the home invasion began about 7 p.m., according to the home owner, identified by the last name of Aguirre. He told police that three bandits took televisions, a portable computer and other articles worth in the neighborhood of 1.5 million colons or about $3,000.

The robbery took place in Jardines de Cascajal de Paso Ancho, which is the same spot where an armed pedestrian shot it out with street robbers Saturday night. His female companion was injured and is recovering. One of the robbery suspects was hospitalized and two of them are in preventative detention, according to the Poder Judicial.

Monday night police in the Grupo de Apoyo Operativo stopped a car without plates nearby to detain the suspects.

An hour an a half after the Paso Ancho invasion, three men threatened a woman at a rooming house in Barrio México in north San José. The men, one of them armed, entered living quarters and took cash and other items, said the Judicial Investigating Organization.

Shortly after midnight, a man tried to stick up a small restaurant in the vicinity of the Puntarenas bus station in San José. Fuerza Pública officers said the woman proprietor suffered a superficial cut on her arm from the bandit's knife. But she managed to dump hot oil on the crook.

Police officers escorted a suspect to Hospital San Juan de Dios for treatment of burns. They also confiscated a knife, they said.

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