{"id":205168,"date":"2025-09-06T14:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T14:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205168\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T14:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T14:20:15","slug":"after-viral-manta-ray-capture-florida-wildlife-agency-says-it-will-revisit-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/205168\/","title":{"rendered":"After viral manta ray capture, Florida wildlife agency says it will \u2018revisit\u2019 policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a letter to lawmakers Friday, the head of Florida\u2019s wildlife commission said the agency would \u201crevisit\u201d its policies allowing companies to capture protected marine species for aquariums after a viral July video of men catching a giant manta ray sparked widespread outrage. <\/a><\/p>\n

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued a permit to Dynasty Marine Associates, Inc. to catch a manta ray offshore Panama City Beach for Sea World Abu Dhabi. It\u2019s unclear if the public would have been made aware of the capture if not for a dolphin tour boat that filmed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand both your concerns and those raised by the public following the recent harvest of a giant manta ray,\u201d wrote Rodney Barreto, chair of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are revisiting our policies related to issuing (marine special activity licenses<\/a>) involving prohibited marine species,” Barreto wrote.<\/p>\n

Barreto said the agency intends to begin a rulemaking process at commission meetings in early 2026. He also said the agency on Aug. 19 temporarily halted issuing new licenses that allow for the capture of shark and ray species with federal protections.<\/p>\n

The letter also revealed that the agency had issued five additional permits for companies to catch shark and ray species listed on the federal endangeredspecies list<\/a>. Barreto said the agency was revoking the authorization of those permits and that the protected animals had not yet been captured.<\/p>\n

Barreto\u2019s response comes after a bipartisan coalition of federal and state lawmakers last week said they had \u201cfundamental concerns\u201d about how the wildlife commission was granting special licenses for the capture of endangered animals from the wild.<\/p>\n

In their letter, the lawmakers said Florida was the only state that allowed for the harvest of marine species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act for commercial or educational purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is particularly troubling that this license was granted absent public input, and in a manner inconsistent with Florida\u2019s own legacy of marine conservation,\u201d the Republican and Democratic lawmakers wrote in their Aug. 29 letter.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Stuart Republican, signed the two-page letter alongside state House representatives Lindsay Cross, a Democrat from St. Petersburg; Peggy Gossett-Seidman, a Highland Beach Republican; and Meg Weinberger, a Republican from Palm Beach Gardens. Sen. Jason Pizzo, who in April switched from Democrat to no-party affiliation, also signed the letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a letter to lawmakers Friday, the head of Florida\u2019s wildlife commission said the agency would \u201crevisit\u201d its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":205169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[723,47792,113053,113055,113056,159,67,132,68,837,113054],"class_list":{"0":"post-205168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife","10":"tag-manta-ray","11":"tag-marine-species","12":"tag-rodney-barreto","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-wildlife","18":"tag-wildlife-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115157796452897778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}