- [Narrator] Manta rays are very large.
They're one of the largest
animals in the ocean.
Certainly they're the largest
of any of the ray species.
They can get up to about 25 feet across.
When they come towards you
and they're that size,
they look like an alien
spacecraft as they go overhead.
They actually block out the sun.
It's just so incredible
to be that close to such
a large animal, especially one
that you don't have to fear.
My name's Andrea Marshall.
I'm a manta ray researcher
and a marine biologist.
I've been in love with
the ocean all of my life.
Ever since I could
remember, I wanted to be
a marine biologist.
When I moved out to
Africa with the intention
of studying things like
great white sharks,
I actually shifted my
focus over to manta rays
when I realized that no one had ever done
a study on manta rays before.
(soft classical music)
One of the things that makes
manta rays so special is
that they're large and
sometimes people feel frightened
by them just because of their sheer size,
but actually they're one
of the most gentle animals
in the entire ocean.
(soft classical music)
Manta rays are very intelligent animal.
They actually have the largest
brain of any marine fish,
but one of the things that
surprises me the most is
just the fact that they seek
out encounters with humans.
So this isn't an animal
that swims away from you,
this is an animal that swims to you.
They recognize you almost as a friend.
(soft music)
(motor runs)
(upbeat music)
Southern Mozambique is just
an incredible location.
I've lived here for the last 15 years
and even though I
travel all over the world
to do my work, I enjoy coming back here
because this is such a wild place.
It's so exciting.
One of the reasons I
began work on mantas is
because I knew that these
animals were under threat.
Recently you know within
the last 15 to 20 years,
they have started to be
fished for Asian tonics
and as a result of this,
we've seen manta populations
crashing across the globe.
Even here in Mozambique
where we don't even have
a very aggressive fishery, we've seen
the population collapse by up to about 98%
over the last 15 years.
We're starting to lose them faster
than we can study them.
So it's really important for me to get
these messages across to people
who don't have the
opportunity to peak down
into the underwater world.
(soft music)
