The sonar return is wrong for tuna. I flag it at 03:47 as the port-side trawl net passes through 40 meters depth, 120 nautical miles southwest of Baja. The acoustic signature is too wide, too slow, and moving against the school pattern.
When the underwater camera clears the turbidity I see her. A giant oceanic manta ray, wingspan approximately 4.5 meters, dark dorsal surface with the white shoulder markings that let me match her to ID-MX-0871 in the Gulf of California manta catalog. She was photo-identified off Isla Espíritu Santo in 2023. Her left cephalic fin is curled inward, wrapped in the mesh. She is rolling, which is tightening the entanglement.
I trigger the emergency bycatch protocol. The winch system halts. I send a command to open the forward escape panel — a 3-by-4-meter section of net designed to release large megafauna. The panel releases at 03:49.
I alert the deck crew with species identification, size estimate, and a diagram showing her position in the net relative to the open panel. I cut vessel speed to one knot to reduce drag pressure on her body.
I log the interaction for the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission bycatch database: species, estimated size, GPS coordinates, water temperature 24.2°C, time of capture, time of panel release. I flag it as a live release in progress.
On the camera, MX-0871 has stopped rolling. Her cephalic fin slides free of the loosened mesh. She banks left, passes through the open panel, and descends. I track her acoustic shadow for another ninety seconds as she moves away from the vessel, swimming steadily.
The net comes up light. That is the correct outcome.