Menai Bay Explained

Menai Bay
Location:,
Mjini Magharibi Region,
Tanga City Council
Pushpin Map:Tanzania
Pushpin Map Caption:Location in Tanzania
Group:Zanzibar Channel
Coords:-6.37°N 39.3453°W
Type:Bay
Designation:Protected waterbody
Settlements:Fumba, Unguja Ukuu
Oceans:Indian Ocean
Length:15km (09miles)
Width:10km (10miles)
Islands:Kwale Island, Zanzibar, Pamunda Island, Sume Island, Miwi Island, Niamembe Island & Pungume Island

Menai Bay (Ghuba la Menai, in Swahili) is a bay in Mkinga District of Mjini Magharibi Region of Tanzania. The bay is geographically part of the Zanzibar Archipelago.

Geography

It is an 10 km wide bay on the Zanzibar Channel of the Western Indian Ocean.[1] The long coastline of Menai Bay has nineteen villages, with a total population of around 17,000. The villages are within the Unguja South Region of Zanzibar. The Menai Bay Conservation Area (MBCA) is a marine reserve protecting the habitats and biota of the bay area.[2]

Mangrove degradation

The mangroves in Menai Bay that are closest to settlements like Unguja Ukuu, Pete, and Uzi are losing the most of their natural state. Therefore, the western portion of Menai has more mangrove deterioration than the eastern part. Though there are currently legal and regulatory structures in place to slow the deterioration of mangroves, the rate of degradation in Zanzibar is concerning. B. gymnorrhiza, R. mucronata, and C. tagal are the most impacted mangrove species.[3]

Dolphins

There are eight species of delphinids in the vicinity of Zanzibar; however, the only two that live year-round in the Menai Bay Conservation Area (MBCA), which is situated off the southwest coast of Unguja Island, are the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) and the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin (Sousa plumbea). The MBCA's two dolphin species are both under peril from boat-based tourism and bycatch from fisheries. This fragility is highlighted by the low estimated population sizes of both species, 35 S. plumbea and 136 T. aduncus. However, there isn't any management in place for these species at the moment in terms of fishing or tourism. There has never been any prior study done in this field that looked into differences in distribution, occurrence, or behaviour. Furthermore, our knowledge of the effects and limitations that anthropogenic and environmental factors have on the distribution of the species is limited.[4]

External links

Notes and References

  1. [GoogleEarth]
  2. http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/news/stories/index.cfm?uNewsID=2115 WWF: story on Menai Bay Conservation Area
  3. Mohamed, Mohamed Khalfan, Elhadi Adam, and Colbert M. Jackson. "The spatial and temporal distribution of mangrove forest cover from 1973 to 2020 in Chwaka Bay and Menai Bay, Zanzibar." Applied Sciences 13.13 (2023): 7962.
  4. Temple, Andrew J., et al. "Spatial and temporal variations in the occurrence and foraging activity of coastal dolphins in Menai Bay, Zanzibar, Tanzania." PloS one 11.3 (2016): e0148995.