05/10/2026
Manta rays feeding at night by torchlight. This was an incredibly unique experience, and one I’m still quite sceptical of. This was human-assisted feeding, whereby bright lights were placed on the sand at night to attract plankton off the sea floor, which then brought the mantas in to feed. While it was an incredible experience to get a very close-up view as the mantas barrel rolled in front of our lights, it never sat quite right with me. My whole experience while diving in the Maldives felt like this, many of the “insta-famous” moments were like some kind of curated circus performance and animals were brought in with food so everyone could take photos.
What are your thoughts on the ethics of this? Do the positives outweigh the negatives?
While I’m definitely not a supporter of feeding marine life for human entertainment, it’s never quite as black and white as there being a right and wrong way. Feeding animals (or attracting their food to a certain area, in this case) definitely impacts their natural behaviour, and in the long term could have detrimental consequences for the animals, their associated food chain and habitat. But in some cases, tourism plays such an important role in giving live animals value. And if tourism isn’t flourishing in those areas, that could create space for potentially more damaging activities to take over (such as fishing).
So while I agree feeding animals for tourism is not the best model and I’d always prefer to encounter animals naturally, there are always worse alternatives. Where possible, always choose the most eco-friendly operators or destinations for your bucket list animals. For example, there are numerous places (like Ningaloo Reef) where manta interactions are done naturally (no feeding) and instead a spotter plane is used to locate them. Along with trained guides and codes of conduct put in place, these things can lessen the impact during interactions.
