Manta rays are highly intelligent pelagic fish that undertake long migrations and may experience the ocean in cognitively rich ways that demand welfare consideration.
Manta rays face threats from targeted fisheries for gill rakers used in traditional medicine, bycatch in commercial nets, and ocean plastic entanglement. Their large size means entanglement causes severe injury and prolonged suffering. Their intelligence suggests they experience stress from capture and confinement in ways analogous to other cognitively complex animals.