As the sun set, 25 boats converged on a small patch of reef just a few hundreds yards from the shore of Kona, Hawaii. With only four moorings, most of the boats illegally dropped anchor on the coral, dangerously tied themselves to other boats, or simply kept their engines running: a serious hazard if there are people in the water. And boy, were there people in the water. Between the snorkelers and us divers, there were a few hundred, all of whom made a frenzied dash for the water as soon as darkness fell. The chaos on the surface overwhelmed us, and we anxiously waited for chains of snorkelers to move away from our boat so we could descend below it.
Underwater, things got even worse. Lights in all directions from the dozens of dive groups disoriented us, and we were tossed this way and that by the high surge as our dive master attempted to move large, venomous urchins out of the way with tongs so we could sit on the reef. She instructed us to hold tight to the coral – even though touching the coral can kill it – as the water pushed us this way and that.
I tried to remind myself that some of the money paid by all of these people would be used to conserve this place, to protect the majestic animals we anxiously awaited. But looking around, it was hard to believe that any of this was going to help the manta rays.
Manta rays, with wingspans in excess of a dozen feet, are some of Hawaii’s biggest attractions. Manta ray ecotourism brings in $3.4 million a year to the small town of Kona, which is big business for the rural island of Hawaii. And ever since the discovery in the 1970s that the rays will feed on plankton drawn by bright lights, turning and flipping acrobatically as they filter in the microscopic food, business has been booming. But according to many who’ve been there for decades, greed has changed the once-conservation-minded industry. Behind-the-scenes drama among tour owners, selfish operating practices and a lack of regulation are placing both the mantas and the tourists that come to see them at risk.
My bad experience has become a common one, explained Martina Wing, a professional photographer and owner of Manta Ray Advocates , who has been filming manta dives for more than a decade. “It’s way too dangerous. It’s out-of-control dangerous ... (and) the state of Hawaii is liable,” Wing said. A recent safety assessment commissioned by the Department of Land and Natural Resources (which is responsible for oversight) went so far as to state that “existing data and observations suggest that a severe accident is mathematically inevitable.”
It’s not just the tourists who are in danger. Wing has videotaped anchors dragging on the reef, destroying the fragile ecosystem that supports the plankton that the mantas come to feed on. She has images of mantas with deep cuts from boat collisions because avaricious operators have begun to install lighting on the vessels themselves, which works a little too well when it comes to attracting mantas. Even anchor lines sunk into the water by careless boat operators can leave the rays tangled and injured.
Wing helped create a “Green List” which points potential tourists in the direction of the most ecologically-minded tour operators, hoping to drive tourism dollars to the most responsible hands. There’s not much else she can do – reporting offenses has proven ineffective, as the Department of Land and Natural Resources claims they don’t have the manpower or funding to police the manta ecotourism. Now, even the Hawaii Legislature is getting involved, but formal regulations, if imposed, are still years away.
Ecotourism is the fastest-growing sector of the tourism industry, but while operators often tout lofty conservation goals to lure customers, little oversight or evaluation actually ensures that such goals are being met. The manta dive industry off Kona is just one example of how such ventures are failing to live up to the “eco” in their names. Just last month, ecotourists in Costa Rica were slammed for overcrowding beaches where sea turtles were attempting to nest , preventing the animals from safely laying their eggs. And according to a new paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution on Oct. 9, even seemingly benign ventures may be putting wildlife at risk.
“We love our natural areas and wildlife and plants to death,” said senior author Daniel Blumstein, professor and chair of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at University of California Los Angeles. “I think one has to always realize that you can’t observe a system without influencing it.”
Blumstein and his colleagues reviewed published literature on human-wildlife interactions from around the world, and came to the conclusion that when animals become habituated to our presence, they lose some of their life-saving instincts. “Animals become tame around people, and this may increase their vulnerability to predators,” Blumstein said.
