Diver numbers may affect manta aggregation in Maldives

by adamhanlon Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Article Summary:

Dive magazine has reported that the crowd scenes that occurred during this years manta aggregation at Hanifaru in the Baa Atoll, Maldives may well drive the mantas away. Up to 200 divers and snorkelers were observed in the water at the same time, despite a regulation stipulating that this number must not exceed 80. The possibility of aggregations of up to 250 mantas at a time has massively increased the sites popularity over the past three years. Guy Stevens, director of the Maldives Manta Ray Project and marine biologist at Four Seasons Resort in Landaa Giraavaru, says:

“Hanifaru is an amazing place, but it’s also a place that, if we’re not careful, will be destroyed,” and “no-one will arrive at the site and willingly forgo diving or snorkeling because it is already full. I would like to see enforcement of the regulations - this year it was a mess.”

xariatay and marv800, good points, the dive operations should be better managed - just don't torpedo a boat pls, the certification bodies should pay more attention to their quality control, individual divers as we are should be responsible and work on their skills, in my opinion it makes more sense for us to start from ourselves instead of pointing at others. marv800, "divers certified in the hundreds" would be worse than a figment of imagination if the linked article is your evidence - the article you refered to clearly stated those divers were NOT to be certified if you've read it. I couldn't IMAGINE a diver certified in one hour anyway, even if the author didn't clearly state they were not. (one hour including paying, classroom, gearing up, waiting in line, boat ride, diving, getting back and taking off wetsuit according to the article you refered to) In fact, most information about China on the net/media are often far from accurate mixed with all kinds of opinions. i'm just doing my part trying to clarify it a little bit. i'm a believer of "doing my part", be it a tiny part, just hope it helps people who want to know the fact. besides, posting a picture of that not perfectly figured diver stiring up sands doesn't make this guy a better diver, or improve his fit. if you were trying to imply all chinese divers are like that, i'm worried poeple from the mars might take it seriously.
Posted by zzz111 on 2010-11-04 00:58:53 Not a bad idead xariatay. I think it would be a great idea to model a system that takes the best parts of the Galapagos system. Tourists can only go if accompanied by a certified naturist. Operators should be issued one day passes by the board, and those passes are limited per day. Only operators that pass a qualification system are eligible to apply for passes. Passes are not transferrable. Any boat's entering Hanifari without passes should be torpedoed upon exit, once they are clear of any marine wildlife.
Posted by marv800 on 2010-11-03 22:56:45 Divers who disrespect wildlife, at any dive sites can cause disturbance to the wildlife, regardless of race & ability, a large of num of them make matter worse. Imagine 20 of those "offending" photographers, sticking their cameras into the manta's mouths, isn't that bad? They have the ability but so what? The dive operators should be the ones "policing" their customers, inform them what can & cannot be done. Hopefully the masses of divers could in turn become supporters of anti-shark finning & other environment issues. marv800, your concerns should be brought to the PADI/SSI/NAUI/others... & maybe also to the Maldives Tourism Board, so that they can limit the visas?
Posted by xariatay on 2010-11-03 22:45:00 You're right. They aren't certifying divers by the hundreds. This is just a figment of my imagination: http://www.bearspage.info/h/tra/ch/d.html Also, I just imagined the boatloads of Chinese divers being dumped in Hanifaru Bay with 15+ kilos of weight on them. I also probably just imagined this diver as well: http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs186.ash2/44967_486108374186_502704186_6825987_3754505_n.jpg
Posted by marv800 on 2010-11-03 22:13:54 Marv800, first on the fact, they don't certify hundreds after hundreds of divers in a line in Hainan, not many even in the whole country of China, you can double check with padi or other certification bodies. Most of the Chinese divers get certified abroad. We see lousy divers from just every cornner of this planet, Chinese being a very small percentage among them, not because they are better in learning diving, just proportional to the total number of Chinese divers. 2nd on our attitude towards problems, we can sit here accuse people based largely on imagination and wish things just get better automatically, or we can act by improving our own skills and help our buddies with theirs, by talking to the operators into a more sustainable way of running their businesses, by feeding back to the certification bodies to keep an eye on the quality control of their certifications - I'm sure you can think of much more ways we can positively contribue.
Posted by zzz111 on 2010-11-02 23:54:36 zzz111, you are right. I meant to say, "Boats full of chinese tourists who were certified en masse at Hainan", and not Hanoi. But other than that, I stand by what I said. These dive operations in Hainan Island where thay certify hundreds upon hundreds of people in assembly line fashion are just plain irresponsible. These divers are churned out with no real knowledge of responsible diving, and very little skill. Its only a matter of time before these people start dying in accidents. Why would you think I have a problem with Chinese people? I am not going to mince my words one single iota. I was there, and I know what I saw. Boatloads of HORRIBLY UNSKILLED AND IRRESPONSIBLE CHINESE DIVERS ASSAULTING THE ANIMALS. There is nothing racist about that statement as it was a reflection of what I saw. And for the record, I am of Chinese descent.
Posted by marv800 on 2010-11-02 14:01:14 I'm worried too and I agree with you guys, something must be done to change this. marv800, please pay attention to your words. I don't know what problem you have with the Chinese or the city of Honai. FYI Honai is not in China and it's not by the sea, I haven't yet met any diver certified in that in-land city. It's extremely unlikely you ever saw "Boats full of chinese tourists who were certified en masse at Hanoi", if it's just your imagination, pls note it's unfair to the people and city you assulted.
Posted by zzz111 on 2010-11-02 09:18:06 The regulations will be enforced very soon at Hanifaru by the government. But I think Four Seasons Landa Giraavaru should not also let their rich clients or staff ride and touch the whale sharks. Like how Guy Stevens let the Saudi prince to do that at Hanifaru.
Posted by Shaff on 2010-10-29 12:06:23 Agree that the regulation should be enforced. Divers/snorkelers/free-divers should be briefed on rules of interaction. Certainly mantas chasing & grabbing must be disallowed, offenders should not be allowed to continue the interaction. The boats should enforce these, their "rice bowls" depends on the mantas.
Posted by xariatay on 2010-10-28 03:01:26 Certainly there were isolated cases of free divers being the culprit, but most of what I saw were masses of divers descending on the cleaning station, sometimes 20lbs overweighted, tumbling down the cleaning station. I watch several idiots swim up and try to grab the mantas by cephlatic lobes. There were days where it was absolute chaos. Other times, boatloads of guided snorkle groups of idiots were dumped in the middle of the vortices of mantas. Personally, I blame the idiotic operators. I'll even name names: Rainbow Runner, Princess Haleema, Sachicka.
Posted by marv800 on 2010-10-28 02:25:48 Looking at the video, the free divers were the problematic ones - sticking their cameras into the manta's mouth, the scuba divers were "quietly" observing at the bottom... This is 1 place I wish to go, hopefully it is not destroyed before I could get there...
Posted by xariatay on 2010-10-28 01:14:20 I was there this season, and early on in September it wasn't bad, but as the month wore on, it became terrible. To me, the real problem wasn't the number of people, as much as it was the number of idtiotic people. Boats full of chinese tourists who were certified en masse at Hanoi with no real knowledge of responsible diving, cramming the area and assaulting the mantas was a nightmare.
Posted by marv800 on 2010-10-27 20:55:11