Art for Conservation

When I first teamed up with marine conservation biologist, Melissa Cronin at UC Santa Cruz, she needed paintings of manta and devil ray species and illustrations showing how rays are caught as bycatch during tuna fishing. The species are challenging to photograph and bycatch photos can be difficult to look at with an objective eye. The illustrations really helped show each species accurately and portray the fishing practices in a scientific way.

As we worked together, she came up with the idea to create a poster for skippers to hang in their ships with information on the species, distribution, life history, and proper ways to handle them. This became part of a workshop that she and her collaborators conducted with the fishermen in order to identify and test methods of reducing bycatch and mortality of these large animals.

Some closeup images of the poster: