All language subtitles for Queen of the Manta Rays Natural World Collection BBC 2010 BLURAY 1080p EN

WOMAN: The first time I saw a manta,
it took my breath away.

It just came out of the gloom
right towards me and it was like

the most beautiful
underwater bird I'd ever seen.

It was so majestic

and I couldn't even focus on
anything except this magnificent animal.

NARRATOR: This chance meeting changed
the course ofAndrea Marshall's life.

ANDREA: Manta rays are unlike anything
I've ever been in the water with.

They're inquisitive,
they will engage a diver.

It's just an amazing experience
to be with them

because you can see
they want to interact with you,

and they are quite curious.

And it was a brief encounter

but, at the same time, I knew then
that I would never be the same again.

Abandoning her life in California,
the young biologist moved to Africa

for a life with manta rays.

Her dream -
to find out all there is to know

about these mysterious creatures.

And, seven years on, her work
has rocked the world of science...

...with the discovery of
a new species of giant manta

and remarkable new findings
about how they live their lives.

But around the world mantas are
in trouble, their numbers crashing.

It is terribly frightening
that something as beautiful

and as important as a manta ray

could ever be brought
to the brink of extinction.

From fighting to protect
these beautiful rays...

...to ground-breaking revelations
about their secretive lives,

this film charts a remarkable year
ofAndrea's life

living with mantas.

Tofo Beach, Mozambique,

where the Indian Ocean meets
the east coast ofAfrica.

And it's here, on this wild,
inaccessible stretch of coast,

that Andrea lives and works.

ANDREA: Look at him! Too cool!

We've motored
about five miles down the coast

to dive at one of the many
inshore reefs off here.

The place we're going today
is called Manta Reef

and it's a renowned cleaning station
for manta rays.

Every day,
Andrea makes the ten-mile round trip

to one of the many reefs
that are scattered amongst these waters.

I think we should dive
the south side of the reef today.

So about another 400 metres,
slightly to the left, would be good.

And it's among these newly discovered
reefs that Andrea has found

one of the largest populations
of manta rays in the world.

Do me a favour - if you see
pregnant ones down there,

just keep a track of how many you see.

We'll be about 40 minutes, OK?

Several major currents
converge at Tofo,

creating some of the richest waters
on the African coast.

I hadn't actually seen anything
quite like the Mozambique coastline

when I first came here.

There was just so much life here.

It was like the Galapagos
of the Indian Ocean.

There's so much plankton,
it turns the waters cloudy,

drawing in leviathans
from across the Indian Ocean to feed.

And it's here,
living among these reefs,

that Andrea has discovered
more than 650 manta rays.

With a wingspan of up to
seven and a half metres,

mantas are the largest of all the rays.

Once feared as dangerous devil fish,
they're in fact harmless giants,

feeding only on the tiny plants
and animals that make up the plankton.

Yet, intriguingly, mantas could be

one of the most intelligent creatures
in the ocean.

For their size,
they have the largest brain of any fish,

and no-one knows why.

Very little is known about manta rays.

So, armed with her camera,
Andrea records every move they make.

With each dive, she's discovering
more and more about them,

building up an intimate picture
of their secretive lives.

From this straw hut, Andrea runs
the Mozambican Manta Ray Project.

And with the support of
the Save Our Seas Foundation

she's transforming this remote site
on Tofo Beach

into one of the leading research centres
in the Indian Ocean.

ANDREA: At the moment, I'm actually
uploading my photos from today's dive

just to check the individuals
I saw on the reef today.

Like a fingerprint,
every manta's born

with a unique spot pattern on its belly.

And it's the shape of these spots
that gives Andrea

the inspiration for naming her mantas.

I try and see an image. So I basically
have named all 650 mantas

after something that pops out at me.

So I have names
ranging from cartoon characters

all the way to presidents.

Andrea calls the two new arrivals
Spotty and Bleeding Heart.

And theyjoin the likes of
Homer Simpson and Dracula

on her growing database.

What's important is not the name,
but the fact that,

when I'm on the reef, I know
all the different individuals I'm seeing,

and the picture becomes
so much more clear.

It's a more intimate type
of research

and it's really quite exciting because
they're kind of like my little children.

And, after thousands of dives
with Mozambique's mantas,

Andrea's beginning
to understand their lives.

She's found that many of them
are resident to these waters.

But what surprised her the most

was that 80% of the mantas were female.

I really strongly believe

this is one of the most important sites,
a critical habitat for manta rays.

They're coming here to mate,

the females are hanging around
for most of the year to give birth,

find mates and have their pups,

which is probably why
they occur in such large numbers.

By sheer luck,
Andrea had not only discovered

one of the largest populations
of mantas in the world,

but she'd stumbled across
a manta breeding site.

There's nowhere else like it
in the world.

It's November, and the manta
breeding season has begun.

It's a key time for Andrea

and dive buddy and research partner
Simon Pierce,

but it's going to be
a dangerous launch.

Conditions are pretty miserable today.
There's huge swell,

short distance between the waves.

It's not ideal at all.
It's actually quite dangerous.

With waves of up to three metres,
no coastguard,

and the nearest doctor 30 miles away,
there's no room for error.

ANDREA: You know, you've got to get out.

I mean, there's no harbours
to launch from here,

so basically, if I don't get out,
I don't get to do my research.

(SHE WHOOPS)

Today, Andrea is setting up
a state-of-the-art acoustic tagging study.

It will record what her reef mantas do
when she's not around.

But, to get the project started,

she's got to be good with a spear gun.

My shot's pretty good, you know.

We pick a place on the manta
to shoot,

and I'm usually within a couple of inches
of that shot,

so I think I'm all right at least
on my shot, just not on loading.

Well, it helps that
she's only about that far away!

As they make their way
down to Manta Reef,

Andrea spots one of the ocean's
rarest creatures.

It's a small-eyed stingray.

Tofo is the only place in the world
where they've ever been seen alive.

At more than
two-and-a-half metres across,

it's the largest of the stingrays.

And this brief encounter is the first
footage ever to be shown of them.

As the ray moves off,
Andrea and Simon set to work

anchoring a special "listening post"
to the seabed.

For the next 1 2 months,

it will monitor the mantas'
day-to-day movements around the reef.

A manta Andrea's known
for four years, called Tri-Star,

is the first to get a tiny acoustic
transmitter attached to her back.

She's now emitting
her very own signature tune.

(FAINT BEEPING)

Whenever Tri-Star comes within
400 metres of the listening post,

it will detect her signal,
logging her in and out of the reef.

Got a tag on Tri-Star,
which is one of my favourites.

I've known her since 2004,
so that was really exciting.

And she's pregnant again,
so that was fantastic.

I'll just go back and see

what kind of data we can get from her
in a few months.

Over the coming days,
five more reef mantas will be tagged.

These acoustic tags are giving us
24-hour information, 365 days a year.

So it's really fantastic technology.

Back underwater, the mantas arrive
on the reef in ever-increasing numbers.

During November,
they gather here to court and mate.

And the displays can be breathtaking.

Before Andrea started her work
in Mozambique,

very little was known about
manta breeding behaviour.

A female manta, when she's ready,
when she wants to mate,

she will lead males almost on a chase,

and you usually get
a single large female

followed by what's called
a "train" of many males.

Sometimes one or two,
and sometimes it's 20.

And they will chase her around the reef
at high speeds

and basically everything that she does
the males will actually do behind her.

It's almost uncanny.
So it's beautiful to see.

Mantas usually give birth
to a single pup

after a 1 2-month pregnancy.

But, in another manta first,

Andrea's found it very rare
for them to pup each year.

That's one of
the very important distinctions

that I've made here in Mozambique.

Manta rays often have one or two
years off in between pregnancies,

and that's probably
to recoup energy stores.

So the fact that they only have
one pup every two to three years

is very, very important
in terms of conserving them

because it means that
they don't have the ability

to repopulate if they're under threat,

for instance from fishing pressure.

With manta rays reproducing
so slowly,

the only way for Andrea to protect them

is to make regular visits
to the fishing communities

that line Mozambique's
sparsely populated coast.

I want to know what season the people
take and kill the manta rays here,

what time of year.

(SPEAKS IN MOZAMBICAN LANGUAGE)

He says, in the summer,
when the mantas are at the surface -

that's their breeding season - they will
kill a lot, so that is very disturbing

and that's probably why they catch
a lot of pregnant females.

And it's notjust mantas
that are being hauled in.

We know that Chinese syndicates
along this coastline buy shark fins

for quite a lot of money.

But they're very secretive
about who they sell it to,

and it's no wonder -

they make a very good living
out of selling shark fins.

The growing Chinese influence
along this coast is a real concern.

Mantas are highly prized
in traditional Chinese medicine.

And the financial rewards for
poor fishing communities like this

could be hard to resist.

Throughout the world,
in areas where they're fished,

mantas are listed as
vulnerable to extinction.

The only way for Andrea
to give Mozambique's mantas

any long-term protection

is to get this remote stretch of coast
recognised as a marine reserve.

These waters are visited
by more whale sharks

than anywhere else in the world.

Whales - from humpbacks to southern
rights - are regularly seen here, too.

(WHALE SONG)

But there's a much rarer creature
that comes here,

a creature that's led to Andrea's
most remarkable discovery yet.

Giants.

Up to two metres larger
than the reef mantas,

the giants usually stay at Tofo
forjust a few days,

before disappearing back
into the Indian Ocean,

rarely, if ever, to be seen again.

Until now, it was thought there was
just one species of manta in the ocean.

But the more Andrea swam with them,

the more she noticed
how different they were.

With a wingspan of up to
seven and a half metres,

they were not only much larger
than the reef mantas,

but their markings were also
much more pronounced.

ANDREA: All these little things
started adding up.

I just had such a hunch.

I just knew... I just knew in my heart
that there was a difference there.

But she needed proof.

And it came from a strange bump
on the giant's tail.

When I first saw the tail,
my heart was beating so fast,

I just... It's hard to explain.

Mantas evolved from stingrays
millions ofyears ago,

and when they did
it was thought they'd lost their sting.

But, while the smaller mantas
had lost theirs,

Andrea found
the giants still had the remains

of a stinging spine
in the bump on their tail.

So to see mantas, a group of mantas
that I knew was different,

have a spine still, it was amazing to me.

It was kind of seeing, like,
the missing link in evolution.

It was the proof
Andrea had been searching for.

And finally she was able
to announce to the world

that she'd found a new,
giant species of manta.

For the then unknown
field researcher,

with little more
than a passion for mantas,

it was an astonishing breakthrough.

But where the giants go after their
brief visits to the Mozambique coast,

that remains a mystery.

I have such a hunch
that they are long-distance swimmers.

I feel that they're very migratory.

I feel that they might be actually
travelling really long distances.

If the giants are ocean travellers,
they're likely to be spending

much of their lives in the heavily fished
waters of the Indian Ocean.

With the giants potentially
at great risk,

for Andrea the race is on
to find out where they go and why.

Following up on all sightings of giants,

Andrea's heading 3,000 miles
across the Indian Ocean

to the Maldive Islands.

Here, a manta research team are reporting
occasional sightings of giants,

as well as huge gatherings
of reef mantas.

With more than 1,200 coral islands
scattered across 500 miles of water

the Maldives have some of
the richest reefs in the world.

Hi! How are you going?
That was absolutely spectacular...

Guy Stevens, from the Save Our Seas
Maldivian Manta Ray Project,

has been studying the mantas here
for four years.

I just got a call from the guys out there,

and there's about three whale sharks
and 1 00 mantas.

Excellent. That's fantastic!

- OK? Right...
- Well, let's get in the boat.

The Baa Atoll is a circular chain
of 60 tiny islands.

A network of coral reefs
snake between them,

channelling the fast-moving currents.

ANDREA: Look at them! Oh, there's one.

- There's one! Oh, wow!
- Right here.

Look at him! Wow!

There's so many.
There's heaps right there.

Here at Hanifaru, the currents sweep
into a horseshoe-shaped lagoon,

creating the perfect conditions

for one of nature's
most extraordinary events.

- Wow, that is a massive group.
- And you can see down there, as well.

- They're all the way down to the bottom.
- Yeah, right to the bottom.

- That is incredible!
- As many as you can see up here,

the whole water column will be full,
down to the bottom.

That is amazing.

- Can we get in and start snorkelling?
- Yeah. Let's go.

Nowhere else in the world do mantas
gather together in such huge numbers.

Within minutes,
more than 1 00 arrive in the lagoon.

All are reef mantas.

The giants are nowhere to be seen.

ANDREA: I'd never actually been in
a situation like that with mantas before.

I've never seen
so many in one location,

and I've been diving all over the world
with manta rays,

so it was actually
a really extraordinary experience.

They were just packed
one on top of another - it was madness.

I was just blown away,
completely blown away.

Never filmed before,

the mantas only gather on this scale
for a few days each year.

And it only happens
during the monsoon,

when spring tides cause strong currents
to draw up nutrients from the depths.

It creates the perfect conditions
for a plankton explosion...

...and a feast for the mantas.

This somersaulting,
called "barrel-rolling",

funnels the plankton into their mouths
in even greater numbers.

Then Andrea spots some of the mantas
skimming across the lagoon floor.

Again, it's behaviour
that's never been filmed before.

It's likely the plankton, trying to escape
the mantas circling above,

have sunk down
and got trapped on the seabed.

After more than an hour in the water,
the tide starts to change,

sweeping the plankton bloom away.

As quickly as they came,
the mantas start to disappear.

- Pretty good, huh?
- Oh, wow! That was sensational!

Being able to look at all those mantas!

That had to have been the best dive
I've ever done in my life,

I really would think.

I was dancing with them!
It was just incredible.

I know that I didn't see any of the giants
down there today. Did you?

No. No, not today.

And that's not surprising for me.

I expect... You know,
when I see one, it's like, wow!

It's an event.
It's not like a regular thing.

- Do you ever see them in this area?
- Yeah, I've seen about two here,

and they'll be feeding with the others,

but they won't ever interact,
they won't associate.

So if you have a chain of mantas

you'll never get the larger species,
the giant mantas,

actually interacting with the others.

As the light begins to fade,

it's time to make the one-hourjourney
back to Guy's base.

But the day's work isn't over yet.

GUY: So you can just about make out
the cluster of spots there.

ANDREA: OK.

- GUY: One, two, three, four, five, six...
- Seven in a circle.

And then it goes off to a...

Over the past three years, Guy
has recorded ten giants in the Maldives.

That's hard to say, you know...

By comparing the spot patterns of
the Maldives and the Mozambique giants,

they're hoping to find a match.

If they find a positive ID,

it will prove the giants
are travelling large distances.

- Can we zoom in on that a little bit?
- Yeah.

But, with all the cross-referencing
done by eye, it's a slow process.

I can say for sure that one's not
in the population. All right.

- On to the next one.
- On to the next one. ...Wow!

That's very, sort of,
dramatic markings, huh?

Dawn on day two ofAndrea's trip,

and the photo comparison work
is yet to find a match.

But, with more than 70
ofAndrea's giants still to look at,

there's a lot more work to be done.

Out at sea, Andrea and Guy

continue their hunt for giants

amongst the huge numbers of reef mantas
that have gathered,

once again, at the Hanifaru lagoon.

Today, the plankton is higher up
in the water column...

...and now great trains of mantas
start forming just below the waves.

It's amazing how they move
in huge groups right at the surface.

Exactly. They've learnt exactly where
to be at what time of the tide...

- A little bit more experienced, huh?
- Exactly...

Lining up behind each other
in a staggered formation,

the trains travel up and down the lagoon

scooping up huge quantities of food.

This feeding strategy

is a deliberate and highly effective way
of maximising their catch.

As the animal plankton sense the pressure
waves from the approaching mantas,

they try to escape.

But the following mantas,
by moving in such a precise group,

leave the plankton with few places to go.

Sucked into the mantas' mouths,

the feast is sieved from the water by
finger-like structures called gill rakers.

It's thought mantas can harvest
more than 1 7 kilos of plankton a day.

As the mantas begin to disperse,
the world's largest fish arrives.

Growing up to 1 2 metres long,
the whale shark, like the mantas,

feeds mainly on plankton.

As Andrea's week comes to an end,

there are still no sightings
of any giant mantas...

...and the photo ID work
also draws a blank.

ANDREA: I had an amazing week
here in the Maldives.

I am so glad that I found the time
to come out here.

This was our first step
in trying to figure out if perhaps

the giants were making migrations from
the African coastline to the Maldives.

But we didn't get any matches.

NARRATOR: Andrea will need
a radical new approach

if she's ever to find out
where the giant mantas are going.

Back in Mozambique,

Andrea has taken delivery
of two state-of-the-art tracking devices.

I took a band off the spear gun
to try and limit the amount of power...

Her plan is to attach them
to two giants to see where they go.

Out on the water,
Andrea begins her search,

but it's notjust the mantas
she has to look out for.

When the water gets murky
and you see a manta swimming by

and it has blood trailing out of it,

you always look over your shoulder
and you think, "Jeez, what just did that,

"and is it, you know, after me next?"

Tiger sharks, bull sharks and great whites
all stalk these reefs.

Down at 30 metres,
there's no sign of any giants.

Only the reef mantas are around.

75% bear the scars
of horrific shark-bite wounds.

Bites like these come from sharks
over four metres in length.

Quite why they're the victims
of such frequent attacks is a mystery.

There's nowhere else in the world

where mantas get hunted on this scale.

But Andrea's discovered

they have a special way
of surviving such terrible injuries.

Tofo's reefs are a hotbed of activity.

Creatures of all shapes and sizes
come to the cleaning stations

to be picked clean
of parasites and dead skin.

Injured mantas are
frequent visitors here, too...

...queuing up for the attentions
of this tiny fish...

...the butterfly fish.

Andrea has found
they specialise in bite wounds.

Madonna, a female Andrea's known
for more than five years,

has a fresh injury on her flank.

By nibbling her wound,

the butterfly fish removes dead tissue,
preventing infection,

making the difference between life
and death for Mozambique's mantas.

Butterfly fish aren't
the only specialist cleaners here.

Schools of sergeant major damselfish
concentrate

on the area around Madonna's mouth...

...while cleaner wrasse swim
right to the back of her throat

to pick clean her gills.

The giants mantas, when they're around,

are frequent visitors
to these cleaning stations, too.

But, with no sign of any today,

Andrea willjust have to keep
returning here until her luck changes.

Back on land,

there's better news.

The listening station
she set up in November

is starting to reveal more
about the reef mantas' secretive lives.

Already, from the first manta we tagged,
Tri-Star, we've gotten some amazing data.

Sometimes she spends
up to eight hours on the reef.

A lot of the mantas seem to be spending

extraordinary amounts of time
on the reef, cleaning,

and that's something that you don't see
other places in the world.

Most people are reporting mantas cleaning

for small periods of time -
two hours, maybe, max -

but I think the mantas here are spending
more time on the cleaning stations

because they have
these massive shark-bite injuries.

The data has thrown up
some further surprises.

None of the mantas that we tagged

are spending any time at the cleaning
stations during the night-time hours,

so where they go at night, whether
they go offshore, or down the coast,

remains a complete mystery.

Andrea suspects they're moving out
into open water to feed,

or to avoid the sharks which are
at their most active as the sun goes down.

It's her first glimpse into
what Tofo's mantas are doing at night.

Two weeks later, and a full eight weeks
since she last laid eyes on a giant manta,

Andrea's luck
looks like it's finally changing.

I'm really excited.

One of the dive operators just called.
They say there are mantas on the reef.

I don't know which ones,
but they could well be giants,

so we've prepped the boats
and I'm ready to go out now.

If there are giants around,
it will finally be Andrea's chance

to attach a tag.

But in the gloomy depths
mantas are nowhere to be seen.

Then Andrea spots
an unmistakable outline.

With its distinct markings, it's a giant.

Far more wary of humans
than their smaller reef cousins,

getting close to a giant
is not going to be easy.

ANDREA: It worked beautifully, I think.

It went in perfect. I didn't see it again,

but the tag looked so good when it moved
off that I think it's in there for good.

I hope it's on its way to, like,
Bangladesh or something, far away.

Oh, it went in and I was going to cry,
I was so happy.

What a relief!

Phew! It makes it all worth it, you know?

So, first satellite-tagged manta
in Africa.

Got to give it a pretty special name now.

- SIMON: Simon.
- No, not Simon.

(THEY LAUGH)

Two days later,
Andrea tags her second giant.

Both mantas are new to her database,

and she names them Cook and Magellan,

after the famous oceanic explorers.

The sat-tag will record the mantas'
every move for the next 60 days.

Then, if all goes to plan,
it will release and transmit

the giants' secrets
to a satellite deep in space.

For now, all Andrea can do is wait.

Meanwhile, reports come in
of an alarming trend

that could be a real threat
to both the giants

and Tofo's reef mantas.

If you just go onto Google
and type in "manta products",

you'll come up with several sites that are
selling fins, the gill rakers, skin...

It's really alarming.

What's so shocking is that,
with the click of a button,

I can actually add manta ray products to
my purchase bin. I mean, it's that easy.

These products are coming from India,
they're coming from Southeast Asia.

But it's that quick.
You can access them that quick online.

The global online trade
is a serious development.

Andrea's seen for herself
the devastation it can bring.

I was just so sad
that these animals were dead.

I was angry that this is still allowed
to happen in the world today,

I'm angry that mantas
aren't protected anywhere,

and I'm frustrated in the fact
that science is often a very slow road.

So, yeah, I do get very emotional.

I won't lie.

Protecting her mantas and finding out
where the giants are going

couldn't be more critical.

It'sJune, and the satellite data

that could be the key
to the giants' survival is finally in.

Cook's tag released early
afterjust 22 days...

...but the data it reveals
is fascinating.

It was always thought that mantas spent
most of their time in shallow waters.

But Cook behaved very differently,

staying down between 50 and 1 50 metres

for half of herjourney.

Why remains a mystery.

Magellan's tag stayed on
for the full 60 days,

and she made an incrediblejourney.

Leaving Mozambique,

she entered South African waters, where,
90 miles off Durban, the tag released.

The last data shows Magellan

heading into the cold waters
of the southern Indian Ocean.

It's a journey of over 700 miles,
and the first evidence

that Andrea's giants are,
as she suspected, ocean wanderers.

Where Magellan was heading
will never be known,

but the significance of thejourney
is enormous.

It means protecting giants like Magellan
will need international co-operation.

As Andrea's year draws to a close

there's a breakthrough
for Tofo's reef mantas, too.

The latest listening-station
results are in.

For the first time,
Andrea now has tantalising clues

about where her reef mantas give birth.

Tri-Star was pregnant when tagged.

And then, just as she was about to pup,
she disappeared from the reef.

What's really interesting
about Tri-Star is

that she only left the inshore area
for about two weeks,

so she probably didn't go very far.

All of this data basically suggests to me

that they are giving birth
in the vicinity,

just probably somewhere else -

offshore, maybe in a bay or a mangrove,
but definitely within the vicinity.

It's the first evidence that there may be
a manta pupping ground close by,

perhaps even in this estuary
just 1 5 miles from Andrea's base.

There are no other known pupping grounds
in the world.

With each new discovery,

this remarkable stretch of coast
becomes ever more precious.

Andrea is now in talks
with the Mozambique government

to set up a marine reserve at Tofo.

But the future for her newly discovered
giants is far more uncertain.

It is terribly frightening that something
as beautiful and important as a manta ray

could ever be brought
to the brink of extinction.

To have found a new species
in this modern day is remarkable.

To lose them to unregulated fishing

and to Chinese medicines

would be a tragedy.

I'm not quite sure
what the future holds for them.

I believe that
they need to be protected

and, certainly off the African coastline,