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Florida authorities have agreed to review the issuing of special permits allowing companies to capture endangered creatures to sell, after an outcry over the netting of a huge manta ray for an aquarium in the Middle East.
Related: Manta man: film profiles unlikely bond between diver and giant sea creature
The review comes after a viral video released on 12 July showed a boat crew capturing a giant manta ray off a Panama City beach in Florida and on to their boat, sparking outrage among the community. A dolphin tour operator who witnessed and filmed the scene confronted the crew and asked whether they would release the manta ray, but they explained they had a legal permit.
“The manta ray was hooked under the wing, and it was obviously exhausted,” Denis Richard, the founder of the Water Planet US dolphin tour company, who filmed the video, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. “I started telling them that they should be ashamed of themselves,” he added of the men capturing the ray.
It was later confirmed that the crew were contractors working for SeaWorld Abu Dhabi to supply an aquarium there, and the company holding the permit was Dynasty Marine Associates, based in Marathon, Florida. The permit was issued by the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC).
The plankton-feeding giant manta ray, the world’s largest ray with a wingspan up to 26ft, is federally listed as an endangered species, with commercial fishing as its greatest US threat. The species is both directly targeted and caught as bycatch. Manta rays are especially valued in specialized commercial circles for their gill plates, which are traded internationally.
After the video went viral, a bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers signed a letter urging Florida’s wildlife agency to revoke the permit that allowed the manta ray to be caught. The letter also called for the suspension of any future “marine special activity licenses” that allow for the limited capture of endangered species, as reported earlier by various Florida media outlets.
“This practice raises fundamental concerns about the FWC’s role in upholding its mission of conservation and wildlife preservation,” reads the letter signed by Republican congressman Brian Mast, independent state senator Jason Pizzo and state house representatives Lindsay Cross, a Democrat, and Peggy Gossett-Seidman and Meg Weinberger, both of whom are Republican.
Dynasty Marine Associates did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Rodney Barreto, chair of the FWC, replied to the lawmakers’ letter on Friday, confirming that the agency would “revisit” the policies that allows companies to capture federally protected marine species for aquariums. He said the rule hearings will occur in 2026. He also said the agency, since 19 August, stopped issuing the permits that allow the capture of sharks and manta rays listed under the Endangered Species Act.
“We understand both your concerns and those raised by the public following the recent harvest of a giant manta ray,” Barreto wrote. “We are revisiting our policies related to issuing [marine special activity licenses] involving prohibited marine species.”
The move represents progress for marine wildlife advocates such as Richard.
“The manta ray is on the list of protected species, and there is a reason,” he said. “The species is on its way out, like a lot of other species, so they need to be protected. If they’re not, then their number will dwindle, and we’ll see what’s happened with many species that aren’t on this planet any more.”
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