Beachgoers Help Giant Manta Ray Get Back In The Water

Not everyone is lucky enough to go on a summer vacation. Those who get to visit some exotic country, like Brazil, are ever further apart.

Imagine getting to experience the colors, music and dance on the sandy beaches of Bahia. You get carried away by the music and all of your worries go away. You grab a cocktail and try to enjoy the sun, when suddenly a group of people gather in one spot and they start to chatter in Portuguese. A giant Manta Ray has been tangled up in some fishing nets and the people are battling time to save it.

This is what a German-speaking family filmed on July 13, 2016 during their vacation in Brazil. Fishermen were getting ready for their everyday activities, when they noticed the strange black blob in the nets. Even though it doesn’t look like a helpless creature, this giant dark mass was actually struggling to get free while stranded on a beach.

"There was one fisherman trying to free the stingray [sic] and most people were just watching and taking pictures. My husband and the restaurant owner took the initiative to call more people to help. Everyone that helped was left with hands and legs pretty grated as the stingray skin is very rough. 15 minutes after the animal was freed, we saw another giant stingray jumping on the ocean, and we like to think it was the same stingray happy to be free again. It was a beautiful moment" said a witness of this amazing rescue.

Thanks to the beach heroes who jumped into the water to help haul it back out to sea and remained persistent despite the waves pushing the animal back to shore, the enormous ocean dweller finally had enough strength to escape the incoming tide. The whole saving mission was time-consuming and the rescuers gave their best to save this huge ray and it paid off at the end. Now it can freely swim in the water again and its sighting will amaze people.

One of the best experience divers could probably have is to dive with the Manta Rays. These rays are also sometimes called “Devil Rays” because of their two horn-like flaps in the mouth. It might be the biggest ray in the planet, but it is considered harmless. Being a plankton feeder fish, the Manta Ray is an occasional visitor to plankton-rich areas of the reef. It also often swims near the water surface and will sometimes make dramatic and striking leaps into the air! When it feeds, it glides through the water with ease using its protruding flaps on each side of the head to direct food into the mouth. Mantas also often come to cleaning stations of the reef, wherein divers can observe them at close range.

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