Florida Keys Aquarium Supplier’s Manta Ray Capture Helped Drive FWC Crackdown on Threatened Species Permits

Marathon-based Dynasty Marine helped push wildlife commissioners to tighten special permits for threatened marine species — while still allowing limited collection of manta rays and Queen conch.

MARATHON, Fla. — A Keys-based marine life supplier at the center of a viral manta ray capture off the Florida Panhandle is facing new scrutiny as state wildlife officials clamp down on who can take federally threatened species from Florida waters and where those animals can be sent — even as the practice continues in a more restricted form.

At its Wednesday May meeting, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved final “Phase III” changes to the Marine Special Activity License, or SAL, rules, finishing a three‑part overhaul that now reserves decisions on collecting giant manta rays and queen conch for public votes of the commission and bans using those permits to export threatened species overseas.

For residents of the Florida Keys, where Marathon-based Dynasty Marine Associates has long operated as a high‑volume supplier of live fish and invertebrates to public aquariums and retailers, the rule changes land squarely in the wake of the viral video showing the company’s crew hauling a giant manta ray onto a boat off Panama City Beach for a foreign aquarium — SeaWorld Abu Dhabi.

Dynasty Marine is known as one of the world’s leading suppliers of large rays and sharks for public aquaria around the world, including tiger, bull, blacktip and hammerhead sharks in addition manta and other species of rays.

Last year, Panama City Beach tour operator Denis Richard was piloting a boat of dolphin‑watching customers near Shell Island when he spotted another vessel struggling with a large animal on the line. He later described seeing the “wings of a manta ray” and said the animal appeared to have been snagged and was clearly in distress as it was winched up and flipped into a shallow on‑deck pool. Richard posted the video below on social media following the event.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lists the giant manta ray as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and instructs that they must not be targeted by fishermen and must be released in a way that promotes their survival after any interaction. Richard said he was stunned when the crew told him they had a permit to keep the animal.

FWC later confirmed the capture had been authorized under a Marine Special Activity License, which allowed the take of one manta ray for exhibition, even though manta rays are otherwise prohibited in state waters. The boat in Richard’s video was operated by Dynasty Marine.

Under the updated SAL rules, only two ESA‑listed threatened species — the giant manta ray and queen conch — may now even be considered for collection for exhibition, and any such authorization must be granted directly by the commission at a public meeting. That means the kind of capture that sparked outrage in the Panhandle is likely to continue under the new framework, but only for manta rays and conch, and only when commissioners sign off in the sunshine.

The package also bars FWC from authorizing exhibition collection of any ESA‑listed threatened species if the purpose is to export the animal outside the United States, closing the door on future overseas shipments of threatened species collected under marine SALs.

FWC paired those changes with a clarified definition of “prohibited species” in the SAL program and a more restrictive policy for collecting prohibited marine species for education and exhibition. The commission also capped temporary possession of marine organisms under the Florida Marine Science Educators Association certification at 30 days and updated rules for non‑conforming gear SALs and tagging of marine organisms.

In the Keys, the decisions reverberate beyond one high‑profile collector. Research stations, aquariums and marine education programs throughout Monroe County operate under a patchwork of state and federal permits that can include Marine Special Activity Licenses. For Keys-based operators, the net effect is a more narrow and closely supervised path for working with the state’s rarest marine animals — but not an outright ban — and a reminder that what happens on a Marathon dock or on a chartered capture trip off the Panhandle can quickly ripple through Tallahassee rule books and Florida’s reputation for marine conservation.