Watch Scuba Divers Set Manta Ray Free
The manta was caught in a fishing line.
— -- A manta ray tangled in fishing line off the coast of Costa Rica appeared to do a partial back flip when a trio of scuba divers came to its aid.
Brazilians Thomaz Monteiro and Flavia Passaglia were scuba diving at Bat Islands, Costa Rica, when they came upon the manta struggling to swim away, the pair wrote on YouTube.
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When the two divers discovered the manta was slow to move because it was stuck in fishing line, a third diver, Brian Thompson of Canada, came to its aid.
Thompson cut the fishing line from the manta, which can have a wing span of up to 18 feet. At the first sign of freedom, the manta appeared to celebrate by doing a partial backflip.
Thompson took the fishing line out of the water and cut it up so that each diver could take home a piece, Monteiro and Passaglia noted.
“It’s our trophy now,” they wrote.
The YouTube video of the rescue, which was posted Thursday, has nearly 800,000 views as of today.