The Girl of the Sea of Cortez (29 page)

Fishing for manta rays increased significantly during the 1990s. In some cases, modern equipment has enabled a fivefold increase in the number of fish caught.
Shawn Heinrichs

Once on land, mantas are cut into pieces before their meat and gill rakers are sold.
Paul Hilton

Chinese medicine has a 2,000-year history, but manta ray gill rakers have only recently appeared on menus. They are said to offer benefits to the blood and liver, to remove toxins and bolster the immune system.
Paul Hilton

Dried gill rakers can fetch up to $250 per kilogram in traditional medicine shops in China.
Paul Hilton

Photos of Manta Rays in the Wild
by Douglas David Seifert
(
www.douglasseifert.com
)

An oceanic ray, with a pair of large remora suckerfish attached to both sides of its head, patrols the open ocean in search of plankton. The dark color and prominent cephalic fins, which look like horns, have led to its unfortunate nickname, “devilfish.” (Photographed in the Revillagigedo Islands, eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.)
© Douglas David Seifert

A female oceanic manta ray is cleaned by small wrasses that remove parasites from her skin. Manta rays hover near coral reefs where wrasses congregate in “cleaning stations.”

(Photographed in the Misool Eco Resort Marine Protected Area, Raja Ampat, Indonesia.)
© Douglas David Seifert

A reef manta ray pushes through the water with its mouth wide open to capture microscopic plankton suspended in a shallow lagoon in the Maldives. The plankton are funneled into the mouth by the cephalic fins and caught upon the gill rakers as water flows out through the gills. This type of feeding is called ramjet filter feeding.

(Photographed in the Maldives.)
© Douglas David Seifert

Reef manta rays gather at a shallow water cleaning station, where wrasses remove parasites from their skin.

(Photographed in the Maldives.)
© Douglas David Seifert

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to ABC’s “The American Sportsman” and its producer, John Wilcox, under whose aegis I was introduced to the Sea of Cortez; to Stanton A. Waterman, for taking me along on the voyage and for his sage counsel and fine company; and to Susannah Waterman Becker whose inspired graphic eye captured the look of the Sea of Cortez.

P.B.  

T
his edition was made possible with generous contributions from two exceptionally talented marine activists:

Douglas David Seifert, journalist and underwater photographer, who supplied the article “The Million Dollar Mantas,” photographs of mantas in the wild, and the brilliant manta photo used in the cover artwork that captures the spirit and majesty underlying the novel.

And, marine life artist Wyland, who is known worldwide for powerful marine murals on city buildings, for vibrant paintings, and for lovely line drawings such as the one that opens each chapter of
The Girl of the Sea of Cortez
.

For Kate Medina

BY PETER BENCHLEY

FICTION
Jaws
The Deep
The Island
The Girl of the Sea of Cortez
Q Clearance
Rummies
Beast
White Shark
Creature

NONFICTION
Time and a Ticket
Ocean Planet
Shark Trouble
Shark Life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PETER BENCHLEY (1940–2006) belonged to one of America’s most celebrated literary families: his grandfather was the humorist Robert Benchley and his father the novelist Nathaniel Benchley. After graduating from Harvard, Benchley worked as a reporter for
The Washington Post
, then as an editor at
Newsweek
and a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson.
Jaws
was his first novel. It was followed by
The Deep
and
The Island
, which were also made into motion pictures. Other works include the novels
The Girl of the Sea of Cortez, Q Clearance
, and
Rummies
, the nonfiction
Shark Trouble
, and dozens of magazine articles and television documentaries about the sea. For more than thirty years, Benchley was a powerful voice for shark and ocean conservation issues through film, speeches, and alliances with scientists, universities, and nongovernmental groups.