A giant manta ray cruises the underwater seamount called The Boiler off of San Benedicto Island in the Revillagigedo Archipelago.

Drift Gillnet Fleet
Decimates Revillagigedo Island
Marine Reserve
Mike McGettigan
Founder - Sea Watch
http://www.seawatch.org

San Benedicto San Benedicto Photos by T. Majewski

On about April 29th a fleet of seven 70 to 90 ton drift gillnet boats, carrying 2 miles of net each surrounded San Benedicto Island, which is the home of the world's largest Giant Pacific Mantas and for 4 to 5 days decimated the sealife in this famous Mexican Marine Park. Even after 4 days of fishing, their nets were still getting from 100 to 200 sharks per boat per day. Based on counts from several nets it is estimated that they killed between 2000 and 4000 sharks, plus Mantas, turtles, tuna, and other marine animals. In two days of diving at Benedicto after the gillnet boats were gone we didn’t see one live shark, whereas before that we would have seen hundreds.

In the years since it first became a Marine Park, the Revillagigedo Islands have become the world’s premier area to see and experience the world’s largest Giant Pacific Mantas (up to 2 tons). People come from around the world spending over $2,000,000 each year to go and dive with these amazing animals. It would be insane to jeopardize all that has been built up for the few dollars someone would get to issue an illegal permit to fish in the reserve.

This area remains wild and exciting largely because these apex predators roam so freely. In the 6 years since the marine park was started the shark populations have come back and appeared to be more or less constant over the last two years. The damage from this weeks attack will take many years to repair. This area is the only area in all Mexico that has been protected and still has much of what was there 30 years ago. It would be tragic to see this last frontier be permanently decimated and a fleet of seven large drift gillnet boats could do it in a few weeks. The details of the incident are below.

5/2/00 - 4:33 AM - Seven large 70 to 90 ton drift gillnet boats were spotted fishing inside the marine reserve at San Benedicto Island before dawn on 5/2/00. All were within the 12 mile no fishing zone and several were within a mile of the Island. After daylight five boats were identified. They were the "Victor M. Calzas", the "Macapule III", the "Mazatleco", the "Tiburon Maco" and the "Nino" In early afternoon the boats finished pulling their nets and anchored in the East bay of San Benedicto until evening when the went out to put there nets in again. The first boat The "Mazatleco" was 1.7 miles off when it put it’s two mile net out. At 5:30 PM the "Nino" had set it’s two mile net within 300 yard of the Island and right on top of Boiler Rock, home of the worlds most famous and largest Giant Pacific Mantas. People from the dive boat Solmar V and divers from the Ambar III confronted the "Nino" at Boiler rock and after about an hour persuaded it to pull it’s net and move further off shore.

5/3/00 7:30 AM - Divers were put in the water to film the net of the "Mazatleco". It had been sitting about 1.7 miles off the North end of Benedicto all night. This was their 4th day of fishing in this area according to the Captain. He said they were going to leave that day as catches were going down. He had about 40 sharks in his 1 mile net. At 10:30 AM we heard one boat on the radio say that his nets were so full he couldn’t turn the wench to pull them. We approached the "Tiburon Maco" fishing 5.5 miles off the North end of the Island asking if they made that call. It wasn’t them, but their net was full of sharks (between 100 and 150 sharks. They averaged 1.5 sharks between 90 foot buoys and their net was 2 miles long). They also had a Manta and a turtle in the net. Five hours were spent counting sharks coming in and filming them in the nets.

5/4/00 - The Navy was contacted as this appeared to be a clear violation of the 12 mile, "NO FISHING ZONE" in the marine park. The park was created by Presidential decree in 1994. There is also a $10,000 dollar fine for killing a Manta in this marine reserve.

5/12/00 - Video tapes of the incident were aired today on Mexican television. The Navy command in La Paz and Manzanillo have copies of video shot of the incident and are doing their own investigation and Julia Carabais, The Secretary of SEMARNAP is meeting Tuesday, May 16th with prominent business and ecology people in Mexico City to try to get to the bottom of what happened. Manta Ray Photo Gallery Photos of Gillnet Fleet - decimating reserve

View Manta Ray video clips taken at San Benedico just prior to this incident.