MANTA rays and sharks are more valuable alive than dead, a Sabah non-governmental organisation said, in response to the killing of marine life around Mabul Island, off Semporna.

Sabah Shark Protection Association chairman Aderick Chong said such  incidents could hurt the state’s diving industry as many tourists were divers visiting Semporna for the unique marine life, particularly sharks and rays.

“To see an oceanic manta in the wild is at the top of many divers’ wish list,” he said in a statement, yesterday.

Researcher at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Johana Zimmerhackel, who is in Mabul island for work, said rays had an economic value of millions.

“A recent study in nearby Nusa Penida, Indonesia, valued manta tourism at US$3.5 million (RM13.6 million) a year, while global manta tourism is valued at more than US$75 million a year,” she said.

She said the benefits of manta tourism outweighed returns from fishing.

A British tourist yesterday shared with the media photos of the killing of marine life near the diving resort he was staying at.

He alleged two manta rays, 13 devil rays and a shark were butchered by local fishermen at a nearby fishing village, where similar killings had taken place two years ago.

Chong has identified one of the rays in the photos as a giant oceanic manta (Manta birostris), the world’s largest species of ray.

It is one of two ray species proposed by the Fisheries Department last year for protection as an endangered species under the Fisheries Act 1985, he said.

The other ray species proposed for protection is the Manta alfredi, or reef manta ray.

A Fisheries Department officer who spoke on condition of anonymity told Sabah’s Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Masidi Manjun although manta rays were listed in Appendix II of CITES, harvesting was allowed for domestic consumption, but a CITES permit was required for export.

The officer said domestic exploitation was an offence only when the species were included on the Fisheries Act 1985 protection list.

The officer did not say when the two species of ray would be listed as protected. – February 19, 2018.