{"id":54836,"date":"2023-05-04T14:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2023\/may\/04\/its-not-like-chicken-farming-why-manta-rays-are-chopped-up-in-sri-lanka"},"modified":"2023-05-04T14:00:43","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T05:00:43","slug":"its-not-like-chicken-farming-why-manta-rays-are-chopped-up-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=54836","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s not like chicken farming\u2019: why manta rays are chopped up in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The gill plates of the extremely intelligent fish \u2013 many species of which are already categorised as endangered \u2013 are sold across east Asia as remedies said to have \u2018no basis in medical science\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Every morning, starting at 3am, Lakshan hacks up manta rays. A wholesale buyer who plies his trade at Sri Lanka\u2019s largest fish market, in the city of Negombo, just north of Colombo, he jostles with fishers offloading their catches. His business is primarily to find fresh tuna but he also buys 700kg (1,540lb) of manta and devil rays every day.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t want the ray\u2019s meat, which most Sri Lankans don\u2019t eat. Instead, he\u2019s after the gill plates: cartilage that helps manta and devil rays filter out microorganisms in ocean waters.<\/p>\n<p>At sunrise in Negombo, the nightly fish market quietens down and fishers start to return home after many days at sea<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2023\/may\/04\/its-not-like-chicken-farming-why-manta-rays-are-chopped-up-in-sri-lanka\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The gill plates of the extremely intelligent fish \u2013 many species of which are already categorised as endangered \u2013 are sold across east Asia as remedies said to have \u2018no basis in medical science\u2019Every morning, starting at 3am, Lakshan hacks up manta ray&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3719,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,41,50,456,464,65,2002,731,59,468,61,674,94,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-conservation","category-endangered-species","category-environment","category-fish","category-fishing-industry","category-global-development","category-marine-life","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka","category-wildlife","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54837,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54836\/revisions\/54837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}