Janis: When you're there, the mantas are literally everywhere, just on the surface feeding. And it's the best feeling in the world because you don't get to do that. Most of the mantas in the other side is a bit deeper than you are, but when you're in Manto Bay, they're on the same level as you are, they're surface feeding. And I think going to Manto Bay will always be my favorite. Becky: Hello and welcome to Cat Among the Penguins. I'm Rebecca Nesbitt. Jenny: And I'm Jenny Hickman and today we are asking, can wildlife tourism save ocean giants or are we loving them to death? Becky: It's becoming ever more popular for tourists to swim with manta rays and whale sharks, and these experiences have made it onto many people's bucket lists. This kind of tourism is also often sold as being good for wildlife. It brings in money and so benefits the animals themselves. But is this true? To unpack that bold claim, we're going to be discussing everything from manta ray cleaning stations to marine protected areas and illegal fishing. Jenny: We are, and as you will see, I have worn my very special t-shirt for the occasion. Becky: For anyone who can't see, Jenny is showing her t shirt, which is a giant whale shark and a teeny tiny diver. So, Jenny, can you give us an idea of the scale of these animals? Is your t shirt accurate? Jenny: My t-shirt is accurate and actually probably undersells them a little bit. So manta rays and whale sharks are the biggest type of ray and shark in the world. rays and sharks are like cousins. They're from the Elasmobrank family. And most of the time they're kind of famous for being aggressive. know, sharks with big teeth or rays that can sting. But manta rays and whale sharks not only are the biggest of their kind, but they're completely harmless. So they're the gentle giants of the ocean. So manta rays can reach up to nine meters across from wingtip to wingtip, so And whale sharks can reach up to 20 meters in length. So it's a very, very British thing to do, but I'm gonna compare that to double decker buses. So that is two double decker buses in length. But they're totally harmless, they're filter feeders and they feed just on tiny little plankton and fish. Becky: I think that's beautiful, the idea of the giants of the ocean feeding on the tiny things in the ocean. Jenny: It is super beautiful and as you know I love the tiny things of the ocean just as much if not even more than I do the big things. Becky: You definitely do. And am I right in thinking that you love the big things so much that you have done this swimming with them? Jenny: You I absolutely have. I've been super lucky. I have sung with both of them I can say it is 100 % something everybody should do. It's an incredible experience. Becky: Can absolutely imagine it being incredible. I can very much not imagine it being 100% something everyone should do, in that Jenny: You Becky: surely, surely there's problems related to this. The idea of people flocking around these amazing big animals, there's just so many levels of concern. And yeah, absolutely, there are claims that it's benefiting, but I'm skeptical about some of these. Starting with the you can be a citizen scientist. you're you're helping the the rays and the sharks by counting them by contributing data, is this just greenwashing? is this marketing that the tour companies are trying to make you feel good about what you're doing? Jenny: Yeah, to be fair, you're completely right. And I say everybody should do it because I get excited and I think it's a great experience. But of course you're right. And actually there are some people that I definitely don't think should be in the water with these animals. But yeah, your point about the data collection is a really valuable one. There is a sort of trend these days for people to want to do trips that have meaning or that kind of contribute something. which can lead to this kind of greenwashing, this sort of strategy where companies sell what they're doing as, you valuable for science or conservation or anything like this. And it is just a marketing strategy. So it's a question that I think a lot of people have. So obviously I wanted to find out the answer. So I got in contact with Dr. Simon Pearce, who is the executive director of the Marine Megafauna Foundation. And I happen to know that Simon is one of the world leading, if not the world leading expert in whale sharks. So I wanted to get in touch with him and I wanted to know if they do actually use these opportunities for data collection. speaker-2: one of the really nice- speaker-1: things about working with whale sharks is they have that beautiful pattern of like white dots and lines and things on them. So we can use photographic identification. So we can take photos and then we can see which individual it is and how often it's being resided, whether it's moving from place to place, things like that. is that when we're working with citizen scientists or tourism operators, of course like so many people these days have cameras in the water. So speaker-2: And the good thing speaker-1: we can non-invasively do some quite detailed population monitoring and start working out over time. even the population is going up and down, we can look at things like boat impacts like fishing entanglement injuries, that kind of thing. So it's both a really nice way for us to monitor how many sharks are there at a given time and what they're doing. But over time as well, we can be tracking like human threats and also just population trends, if the population is still decreasing, even following protection in many countries or whether hopefully the populations are starting to recover speaker-2: these are very. speaker-1: long-lived animals like we think whale sharks probably don't hit adulthood 30 to 40 years old. So you've got really long generation times and things and population recovery can take a really long time. So that is beyond the scope of most kind of regular scientific funding streams Whereas like tourism operators of course will be out there as much as they can. So it's like there's only a handful of whale shark scientists around the world. And of course, we're not on site necessarily. with these whale shark aggregations all the time. so it does unlock a lot of research that would be pretty challenging otherwise, Becky: So that's really interesting. And the point that he makes about data collection lasting beyond normal scientific funding, that does resonate with me. I mean, you and I both know all too well how scientific funding works. It's short term, it's unreliable, you don't know if it's going to continue. So collecting any long-term ecological data on regular funding puts just often doesn't work at all. I also love the idea of bringing people together, bringing together the tourism operators, the tourists and the scientists all working together to collaborate on this really valuable data set. Jenny: Yeah, I think that's a really, really nice part of it. And the part that really stuck with me actually is how non-invasive it is. So you can do this monitoring with just photographs. And that's really key because these animals, ocean megafauna like whale sharks and also manta rays, which we'll talk about a little bit later on, they're hugely transient and they travel thousands of kilometers. So like he sort of says, it's not really possible for this tiny little handful of whale shark scientists to track them across the globe all the time. But if you increase that team to global tourism, that's a huge data set that you've got access to all of a sudden. And both whale sharks and manta rays have these kind of unique spot patterns. And all you need to do is to get a decent photo of those spot patterns and they can use this software, which is the same software they use to identify hit star constellations, which I think is so beautiful. Becky: Wow. Jenny: Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? So they can use this software to identify this individual no matter where they're spotted in the world. So you don't need to be a great scientist to take a photo. So it also addresses the claims that people have about, you know, can non-scientists collect scientific data? Actually, yeah, if they can get a great photo, they can. Becky: and they probably can get better photos than a lot of the scientists can. There's some very, very skilled underwater photographers. Jenny: absolutely. Yeah. Becky: So that does sound promising. I'm happy you've convinced me that this can good data collection. But sometimes it feels like scientists just love data. The answer is always, let's have more data. But is that enough? Is there really any evidence that we're collecting this data and it's actually helping the animals? Because the animals themselves don't really care about how much data we have. Jenny: Yeah, and another very, very valid point and something that, you know, you and I have talked about a lot is we do have a bit of a tendency in science to kind of just gather data, data for the sake of data. We need more evidence. And actually a lot of the time and for various reasons, to be fair, that doesn't always translate into tangible change, policy, legislation, anything like that. So yeah, that's a really, really valuable point. But the good news is that it sounds like that actually might not be the case here. So here's what Simon had to say about that. speaker-1: Yeah, so there's definitely a clear link between protection of whale sharks and their habitats and tourism in several areas, they were legally protected in the Philippines and in Honduras and probably multiple other countries as well because of their value or potential value to the tourism industry in those countries. There's been several examples of marine protected areas that have been created to primarily protect whale shark habitats, like over in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, for instance. And even with designating important habitat zones, like important shark and ray areas, a lot of the time that data has been contributed by either tourism operators themselves or by scientists working with those tourism operators. So yeah, there's definitely like... whale shark tourism has provided tangible benefits to whale sharks in many areas of the world. Jenny: And this definitely connects to that kind of global potential for this data collection. So with animals that travel as far as these animals do, it is really, really difficult to know the kind of critical information that we need to know to protect them. So often those sort of areas that he talks about, for example, important shark and ray areas, they might be based on what's known as critical habitats for these animals. So perhaps key feeding grounds And it's really, really difficult to have that information when these animals use so much of the ocean across so much of the year. So it's that sort of information that can actually feed into the creation of those areas. And it's because of tourism that we have a lot of that information. Becky: Those are really lovely examples of how the data produced does genuinely translate into tangible benefits. And I can also see economic incentives here. And rightly or wrongly, that is the language that policymakers often speak. So I can imagine that economic benefits from tourism is what certain people need to take this seriously. However, of course there's always a flip side that Wherever there's economic s incentives, there are perverse incentives to abuse this. I know that tourism operators like this are often incentivized to, for example, chase the animals or get too close. And certainly on land, I've really seen this in safaris. You've got the jeeps chasing after the animals. It incentivizes bad behaviour. Jenny: Yeah, and unfortunately, this is definitely where the story does start to get a little bit confusing. Humans will be humans and we really, really know how to make a mess of a good thing. So as you have well predicted, this situation is unfortunately no different in the ocean than it is on land. speaker-1: There's other places like, I would say, South Aerie in the Maldives has been created as a marine protected area for whale sharks. And I view that as a complete nightmare. it's routine to get 100 to 150 people around a single shark. When I was there, there was 17 boats chasing a shark. the water and it's like, was... swim away, but it's a really dangerous situation for the swimmers and that as well. And I think it's pretty easy for, say, whale shark tourism because it's snorkel-based, so there's less of a barrier to entry than like dive-based tourism, for instance. It can devolve into mass tourism pretty quickly. speaker-2: I mean the shots can Becky: That's pretty shocking. I predicted it was gonna be bad, but not that bad. I mean, in your experiences of swimming with these creatures, have you experienced that sort of thing? Jenny: I've got to say, unfortunately, I have. I'm super lucky in that I've had both kinds of experiences. I've had the kind of middle of nowhere, just me and my snorkel gear and a bunch of mantas experience. But I have also had the opposite end very similar to what he's talking about. And funnily enough, it was in one of these experiences that I actually met our next guest. So of course, we've mostly been talking about whale sharks. But we're gonna move on to talk a little bit about Manta Rays now. So our next guest is Janice Argoswara and she is an Indonesian marine biologist who is the Indonesian country manager from the Marine Megafauna Foundation. She specializes in Manta Rays and she works specifically in a tourism hotspot of Nusa Penida in Bali. I met her when I was over in Bali and actually funnily enough, she was running some surveys on manta ray populations the day that I was diving in the bay with manta rays. And what I didn't realize at the time, what she told me in the interview was that that day was one of the worst that she's ever seen it. So here's what she had to say about that day. Janis: So here in Nusa Penida, it is a tourism heavy site. it's very popular for mantras as they are quite reliable. They're here most of like all year round, mostly between January and June, peaking in May, but they are here most of the time. and mantas generally mantas themselves they are quite friendly they're charismatic they don't bite they don't sting so it's kind of nice to be around them and they are curious animals so they might kind of stick around by you and check you know your bubbles and everything like that so it is really nice but because of the easy access in Sapanida is from Bali it's just like one boat ride away way so it's very accessible that it makes it a bit kind of too easy to get to you know And because it's very accessible, it's very easy to get to, and right now there's no management system of limiting the number of boats that go there every single day. It gets quite hectic most of the time, especially when it's high season, from June to September. We've counted up to 50 boats. at a time in one area and it's not a big bay. Jenny: So that day where she talks about 50 boats, that was apparently the day that I was also down there diving. So she was up on the clifftop running surveys and counting boats and I was down in the water doing a dive and I had dived previously in that spot before, but there'd been about a 10 year gap in between. and it had just exploded. There were people everywhere. There were boats everywhere and it was crazy. You're underwater and it's just this sort of circus of people. but there were also a lot of manta rays, so everybody else was having a great experience. But it was crazy. It was very, very different to how I'd seen it before. Becky: That kind of story is just madness to me, including because doesn't it risk being self destructive? Tourism relies on those manta rays, but if people aren't having a good experience and ultimately you're gonna drive the manta rays away, then you don't have any tourism. Jenny: Yeah, that's the logical thing that you would expect. And you think, especially as this tourism increases and as it gets busier and busier, that's what you would see happen. But when I asked Janice, that wasn't actually what it sounds like is happening. Janis: You know that's... One thing that we thought would happen, we tried to use narrative, especially after COVID, like tourism kind of spiked up like even higher than before COVID. And so we tried to use narrative of, know, if this isn't managed, the mantas will go away. But the thing is, the mantas aren't going away, you know? The slides are very important to them, that they decided like, you know, a bunch of tourists, a bunch of boats, although we have been, you know, get propeller cuts and whatnot. it's not like the site is so important to them that they're not really going away. We have seen a change in behavior in Manta Bay, the feeding ground, where one of the years they were instead of being on the surface they were feeding like quite deep and so it made a lot of the snorkel boats go off to Manta Point. That's now the number of large boats in Manta Point because Manta Bay wasn't as reliable. as it was like before COVID. So that was a weird year when the mantas are like going a bit deeper to feed, but and then they came back. Becky: On the face of it, that sounds surprising, but it does make me question what it really means because as Janice said, these sites are really important to them. So yes, it feels like they could swim anywhere in the ocean, but that's not true. They have very specific habitat requirements and they use certain habitats at certain times for certain reasons. They can't just move on and find somewhere else. There's a reason they were in that spot at that time. Jenny: Yeah, completely. This is definitely one of the concerns. And I think a lot of the time we also hear about other swim with tourism. So for example, great white cage shark, great white shark cage diving is something that we hear a lot about. But there's a very critical kind of ecological difference. And that is whatever your opinion on this. And there's obviously a whole other world of problems that open up with this, but whatever your opinion on this. we draw those sharks to us through, for example, chumming the water or feeding. We put something in the axe as an attractant to sharks and they come to find us. Whereas with these animals, with whale sharks and manturys, they follow the plankton. So when they follow the plankton, that is where they need to be for their food. That's where they're feeding. And then we follow them to that critical habitat. So it's a very, very big difference in that we sort of go to these critical habitats that they are in for a very important reason. Becky: So they might not be leaving the area, but I guess it's possible that their behavior is changing in ways that are just not so obvious to us. As Janice said, it seemed that they've already altered their feeding behavior. And I'm also linking this back to one study I read where scientists in Florida used drones to see whether divers affected the behavior of juvenile Atlantic manta rays. And in that situation, they found that the divers did affect the behavior. It wasn't that the rays left the area completely, they were still there. But if you looked more closely and subtly saw the behavior, it was changing, and the rays were on a very small scale swimming away to avoid the divers. And If they're swimming to avoid the divers, they're not feeding. They're expending energy unnecessarily and they're not doing what they need to do. Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. And it's those kind of unseen impacts that people might not always consider these sort of little changes to their lifestyle or to their daily behaviors or daily activities that have the potential to have long-term impacts on the population. Simon actually had a really interesting story about this. So it wasn't regarding whale sharks, but he had a very interesting point of something that he had heard about dolphins. speaker-1: I'm always conscious that there was some dolphin studies over in Western Australia that were doing long-term monitoring and what they found was that when tourism started, a lot of the dolphins, well, a proportion of the dolphins sort of disappeared off from that area. but from when the tourism started, basically the number of dolphins that were prepared to interact with the tourists. stayed pretty similar. So if you just had the monitoring going like tourism dependent kind of monitoring, you would have seen a very stable population. But in fact, quite a few of them had left because they were obviously more sensitive to disturbance. Jenny: So this is super interesting because it really shows the importance of that baseline data. So obviously in ecology, the kind of gold standard data that you need will have some sort of before an image, snapshot of the before, before the pressure was there. And without that kind of baseline data telling us what the ecosystem looked like before or what the population looked like before, we can't know what kind of changes are happening. And the same goes for this situation. If the data only started being collected when tourism started, how do we really know what's actually happening here? Becky: Yeah, exactly. And I'm also thinking back to the fact that we're following these animals into their key habitats. And given that their key habitats are sensitive ecosystems such as coral reefs, surely we risk causing damage. Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. And not only key habitats, but also really, really popular tourist hotspots. So somewhere that is already kind of attracting crowds and crowds of people and it's where they're going to be very likely to want to do these experiences where the holidaymakers are. So actually that was kind of one of my questions for Simon. I asked him if he thought there was any potential for long-term impacts on the population as a result of things like tourism. As we've sort of talked about, it's very, very hard to tell if there's long-term impacts on the population, but actually what he did talk about is the potential for long-term impacts on their habitats. speaker-1: manta rays and many shark species, a lot of the scuba tourism and snorkel tourism to some extent as well takes place around cleaning stations as you say, which are really important areas for because they're coming there anyway for kind of hygienic reasons to like so the cleaner fish can eat dead skin like pick off parasites or that kind of good stuff that they need. It's also a real hub of their social interactions as well. And, but also because these are discrete areas, typically like reefy, then if diver behavior is not managed, then they can inadvertently destroy the physical structure of the cleaning stations. So if you break all the coral apart, then there's nowhere really for the cleaner fish to live and they will move on. Jenny: And actually it's interesting that he talks about cleaning station here because like he says, particularly for manta rays, these cleaning stations they're really key hotspots for both manta ray behavior, but also for these experiences to see the manta rays, because they're not guaranteed, but it's fairly predictable that mantas will be there. And one of my coolest manta experiences was at a cleaning station. was this, I was on a dive and I was in Komodo where the currents are absolutely crazy. the whole time you're sort of pinned to the seabed and you're clinging on in these crazy currents. But just a few meters away there was this absolutely ginormous manta ray. And he was, I always remember him as looking like an alien spaceship because he was just hovering completely still, just mouth wide open, wings outstretched, completely still in these insane currents being cleaned. And it was one of the coolest manta experiences I've ever had. But at the same time, it was quite hard to enjoy it because there was quite a few groups down there and there was quite a few fairly inexperienced novice divers trying to maintain their buoyancy in this current and they were like kicking corals and doing damage and it's pretty hard to enjoy what's otherwise an incredible experience when there's those two sides happening at once. Becky: It feels a bit like this is showing that it's the mantas that have their natural habitat in the water. Currents no problem for them. For the humans, not so much our natural habitat. And it shows. And no doubt that caused damage. And I've read studies proving this. I read one from the Philippines where a reef site was impacted by whale shark tourism. And it had lower coral density and higher seaweed cover. So those are clear signs of a degraded reef. Given that tourism seems to be damaging the habitats and also tourists are directly affecting the animals themselves, I think we've got to ask, should this stop? Jenny: I spoke to Janice about this because I wanted to know where she stood on this. Is this something that she feels should continue? And she actually thinks that it should continue, but just with some changes. And she talked about some of the operators that she works with, who she had been seeing some really, really good practice and good conduct from that could provide a really good example for other operators. Janis: I've seen... a lot of like boat captains call out other boat captains when like, your guests are like, it's super shallow, your guests are definitely stepping on the corals, tell them to go horizontal and not like vertical. You know, I've seen captains calling out and we have like given some socialization to captains and guides as well. And they actually, they're really interested in learning more about the mantas and you know. like why the mantas do this and that, or like what site is important for the manta because guests ask these guides, right? And so it's valuable for them to know as well. And because they know this, they also want to become an example for the guests of like no touching. So right now, a lot of the boats are actually giving some really good briefings of like both safety briefing and also kind of like the ecological briefing of like no stepping on the coral, no touching the manta, no chasing, but it goes back again to the guests and their compliance. And yeah, some snorkel tour operators, some dive operators, they're really good. They're really harsh, not harsh, but they're strict on the guests of like, no, you shouldn't do this. It's wrong. If you keep doing this, then we're to have to not let you go into the water or something like that. But some places are also like, OK, you do whatever you want as long as it doesn't get us in trouble. Becky: That's really reassuring to hear of boat captains calling each other out and You can imagine a scenario where the community becomes self-policing and good behaviour becomes the norm. That's what's socially acceptable. Jenny: Yeah, for sure. And I think it definitely shows a desire from the perspective of the operators to actually do well as well. So there's an understanding that, yes, there is an economic incentive to kind of get more people in the water and see the animals, but there's also an incentive to ensure that it can be long-term and sustainable. And that does require it being done well. And it's not even Becky: yeah. Jenny: just that, there's actually some really cool unexpected benefits that Simon talked about. So listen to what he had to say about how it might deter illegal fishing. speaker-1: the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador is another good example of tourism where also there's a very strong incentive for illegal fishing in that area because you've got a lot of hammerhead sharks and things that are very high value fins and meat. And because you've got a regular presence of tourism operators there, like dive boats, they are effectively monitoring the park, even some of these really remote areas where you're just not going to get like naval vessels and that very often. So I think the presence of tourism in that area it's a good way to keep illegal fishing boats, keeping their distance because they know they will be spotted if they come into that area. Jenny: So that was just a really interesting story. I thought that was really cool because that's quite an unexpected way that this sort of tourism operation can provide this kind of indirect protection. Just the presence of these tourism operators in an area that's really key for an endangered shark species can deter illegal fisheries, which I just thought was a really cool little story. So after all that we've heard, what do you think? Do you think wildlife tourism can save ocean giants? Becky: Well, you've definitely shown me some positives. I did like that story about Simon illegal fishing being such a huge problem that's hard to know how to tackle. So very interesting to see the link here. And also what he said earlier about there being a positive link, but in some cases between tourism and official protections. So yep, I would agree there are some positives. Jenny: Yeah, and I think, you know, we've seen that there is tangible translation into conservation and there's an opportunity for people to kind of see these animals and interact with them. And it does kind of provide a really good economic incentive to actually keep them alive. Becky: of course, there were some horror stories, that same economic incentive to keep them alive was an economic incentive to abuse this. So I think your horror stories were really quite concerning, both from the impact on the animals themselves and on habitats, these hugely important and sensitive habitats. I think we really need to take those problems seriously. Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely has to be done right. We have to be really, really careful with how we let these things grow and it's completely context dependent. So I think it is really important to say that while I have had some horror stories, I've also been with some really, really great companies. So that horror story that I told about the cleaning station, the dive company I was with, were great. They were incredible. They were very, very strict about how we behaved under the water. They were very, very clear about their rules. So there are really, really reputable companies. And actually both Simon and Janice talked about some of the work they do with operators on things like codes of conduct and working together to make sure that people are aware of their behavior. So you're completely right. And the most important thing, if anybody is going to do this, is to find a reputable company. Becky: And do you have any tips on how they can find a reputable company? Jenny: Yeah, think going looking up information through organizations like the Marine Megafauna Foundation or the Manta Trust, they normally work with reputable operators. But I think what we can do is we can put some information in the show notes. So I know for a fact that Marine Megafauna Foundation do run expeditions, we can link to that on our website and we can link some information for you guys if anybody is looking to do an experience like this. Becky: I think you've convinced me that tourism does have a role to play in protecting manta rays and whale sharks. But the question was: can swim with tourism save these j ocean giants? And I think that answer is a clear no, because as always, you can't just focus on one particular issue, one particular species. There's huge broader problems such as climate change that we need to tackle. So yes, I think well run, it has a part to play, but there are so many bigger issues that we shouldn't let this debate detract our attention from those. Jenny: it's definitely one part of a very, complicated puzzle. And I think it provides some really exciting opportunities in terms of data collection and getting people to love these species. But you're completely right in that there is no silver bullet and it's just a very, complex puzzle. Becky: Complex puzzles, those are exactly the kind of debates we like. Jenny: Absolutely. So that's it for another week. We would love to hear your thoughts on this week's episode. Have you swum with manta rays and whale sharks? Have you got any terrible experiences or even better, have you got any great experiences and great tourism operators that you would like to give a shout out to? let us know in the comments or come see us on catamongthepenguins.com. We'd love to hear what you think. See you next time. Janis: Honestly, for me, my favorite fact about mandas is that they're really smart. They have the biggest brain to body ratio of any fish. And that makes them curious. they're fish, but they're curious. That's why for me, it feels it's like I'm looking right into their eyes, like deep into their soul and they just kind of hang out, hang out with me and like, that's nice. Thank you for hanging out with me. You know, Jenny: Thank you very much for listening to Cat Among the Penguins. If you want to get involved in today's conversation, we would really like to hear your thoughts. So come visit us on catamongThePenguins.com or find us on social media. See you next time.