A bipartisan group of state and federal lawmakers is seeking sweeping new protections for threatened marine life following a viral video that showed a Florida company capturing a giant manta ray for SeaWorld Abu Dhabi.
Florida is the only state that allows marine parks to take the manta ray, sometimes called the “angel of the sea,” from its wild habitat for exhibition, according to a 2024 federal report.
In a joint letter, members of Congress, the Florida House and the Florida Senate are urging the state’s wildlife agency to revoke the license that allowed the July capture of the manta ray, a federally designated threatened species. The lawmakers also want the agency to suspend the capture of threatened or endangered marine life for public display.
“The video shows … a giant magnificent creature being dragged onto a boat,” said Democratic state Rep. Lindsay Cross, an environmental scientist from Tampa Bay. “This is an animal that is being taken from its natural habitat to captivity, and someone is making a profit off it.”
Cross wants the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to discuss the issue at its November meeting.
Florida allowed capture of threatened giant manta ray for overseas aquarium
The Aug. 29, two-page letter was also signed by U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Stuart Republican, along with state Reps. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, R-Highland Beach, and Meg Weinberger, R-Palm Beach Gardens. Democrat-turned-independent state Sen. Jason Pizzo added his support as well.
Shannon Knowles, an FWC spokeswoman, said Wednesday the agency has received the letter and is preparing a response.
The video captured by a dolphin tour in July showed a crew hoisting a manta ray out of the sea near Panama City Beach and lowering it into a pool on their boat deck. State wildlife officials said the capture was legal through a special license issued to Dynasty Marine Associates, a Florida Keys-based aquarium supplier.
Additional records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel revealed Dynasty Marine captured two other manta rays in 2023 for SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, including one that died after its health declined in a Florida Keys holding tank before it could be shipped overseas.
Three Florida manta rays captured for SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, one died, records show
Lawmakers want the state wildlife agency to make public all records associated with those licenses and commit to crafting regulations permanently prohibiting the capture of threatened marine species, including manta rays, for commercial use.
They wrote that “authorizing the removal of a threatened marine species for foreign display represents a significant departure from the values and principles that have traditionally guided FWC and Florida’s wildlife policy.”
“It is particularly troubling that this license was granted absent public input, and in a manner inconsistent with Florida’s own legacy of marine conservation,” the lawmakers wrote. “Additionally, the lack of accountability for contractors, transporters, or aquariums to report on the health and status of an animal once removed from the wild constitutes a grave lack of oversight and concern for the animal’s long-term well being.”
The lawmakers added that leading marine biologists and manta ray experts have found that the species is not well-suited to captivity. The manta ray has a wingspan up to 26 feet and can grow to 5,300 pounds, about as much as a car.
Other overseas aquariums also have sought to capture a manta ray in Florida waters in recent years, records show. State wildlife officials have granted licenses to the Nausicaá Centre National de la Mer in France, Chongqing Andover Ocean Park in China and another facility in the United Arab Emirates, The National Aquarium Abu Dhabi.
So far, none of those aquariums have obtained manta rays under the licenses issued over the past five years, wildlife officials said.
The Georgia Aquarium, the only U.S. aquarium to showcase the manta ray, received a license, too, but a spokesman said it has no plans to acquire another manta ray.
Two of the three manta rays on display in a 6.3 million-gallon habitat at the Atlanta facility were taken from Florida waters about 15 years ago, according to the aquarium.
