Following the filming trip on The Great Barrier Reef we jumped on a plane bound for Western Australia, heading towards a beautiful place called Coral Bay up on the north west coast. Here, we met with Frazer McGregor, a local manta ray expert to film a story on the local population of manta rays on the Ningaloo coast. Frazer was working on the population dynamics of manta rays in the region and believed that the network of marine protected areas (MPAs) was critical to the health of the population there.
Freediving with the manta rays here is still one of my favourite experiences. Dropping off the boat into the water and witnessing four mantas majestically glide by you is a surreal experience. They swim with such beauty and grace and you could happily watch them in the water all day long.
The key sequence we wanted to capture was Frazer performing photo identification on one of the mantas. So we located a cleaning station and looked around for a manta. It wasn't long before one arrived. We took a few deep breaths and began to dive. It was important for me to try and be between the manta ray and Frazer as this would give us the best shot, so as we reached about 10 meters (30 feet), I moved away from him trying to get them both in shot. It worked out great and we came away with a wonderful sequence.
The mantas were everywhere that day, we got plenty of opportunities with them. Often manta rays can be notoriously difficult to find and quite flighty, but on that particular day we were really lucky. In fact, we were even lucky enough to have a rare dugong swim up to us, check us out, and then disappear off into the blue, an amazing experience.
Coral Bay is such a special place, it still has a small population and remains quite undeveloped. However, it still faces numerous challenges, development being the biggest one. But, surprisingly fishing is having an effect on the area too. Being a great place to catch a fish, people head here from all over Australia to wet a line. One of the commercial fishing charter operators we spoke with told us about the challenges he faced. He said it was becoming harder to catch a fish and they were having to go out further and fish deeper for their clients. Locals in the area were also frustrated with people from out of town coming in with their freezers and not leaving until they were full.
Also in Coral Bay, we visited the nearby Warroora Station, where Leonie McLeod, a local grazier, shared her ethos with us and showed us how they managed campers fishing on their property. Over the years she had watched the ocean adjacent to her property become slowly fished out, making it harder and harder to catch a fish. Now, she requires campers to only take what they will consume whilst camping on the property, giving the inshore fishes a chance to regenerate.
At the airport, the scale of the problem dawned on us, as we witnessed esky after esky full of fish being checked in to the flight. Hundreds of kilograms of fish were also leaving by air. Western Australian law permits a possession limit of 20kg (44lb) of fish fillet. So a family with three kids could essentially take 100kg (220lb) of fish fillet with them when they leave from a trip to this region. You don’t have to be a mathematician to realise that this level of catch, leaving on a daily basis, unchecked and unaccounted for is going to have implications to the fish stocks in the area. Whilst numbers of tourists are low, stocks may persist, but Coral Bay is stunning and it won’t be long before the area is faced with greater tourism. Therefore, management of catch limits and enforcement of the MPA are critical to the survival of this beautiful part of the western Australian coast.