A dead manta ray is worth $40-$500 in Indonesia. Manta ray tourism, however, can bring in $1 million during the life span of a single ray! Mantas can live to become 50 years old and can travel in groups of up to 50.
The Indonesian government did the math, figuring a ray is worth 2000 times more alive than when it is dead!
This prompted the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to ban fishing and export of mantas in 2014. Indonesia’s 2.2 million square miles of ocean is now the largest sanctuary for manta rays in the world.
This could not have come at a better time for mantra rays whose population has declined in the last ten years and the ray is now listed as “Vulnerable to Extinction" by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Manta products are mostly sold in the Guangzhou region in southern China as part of a scam, proclaiming the gills can cure everything from chickenpox to cancer and infertility.
But it has no curative properties and are not considered a formal component of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In fact, they are not even recognized by traditional medicine practitioners!
