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Two cownose rays were found on the beach at the James Farm in Ocean View. The two rays had been stabbed, say observers who came upon them on Monday, Sept. 18 during a field trip.
Naturalist Liz Gordon was leading a group of seventh-grade students on a nature tour when the students came upon the two dead animals lying on the beach.
Gordon and the students inspected the rays and found they had been stabbed with a garden-style fork and spade. Both the rays were pregnant also, said Gordon.
“It’s just such a shame,” she said.
Rays are common in the bays and migrate here every year on their way to warmer waters. The rays can grow up to 36 inches long and weigh up to 36 pounds.
Cownose rays like to eat oysters and other shellfish and have become a pest to some watermen in the Chesapeake Bay region. While the Inland Bays of Delaware no longer harbor much in the way of shellfish, the Center for the Inland Bays staff has been operating an oyster gardening program on an artificial reef located right off the shore of the James Farm beach. The rays may have been attracted to the reef area.
“They were really beautiful,” said Gordon. “It could have been somewhat curiosity, somewhat fear that spurred the killings.”
E.J. Chalabala, wildlife manager for the Center for the Inland Bays buried the two animals later that day.
Cownose rays are brownish on top with white or yellowish bellies. They can have markings across their backs. They range throughout the Atlantic from New England to Brazil. The tails of the cownose rays are not barbed, like the tails of stingrays. Stingrays use their tails as weapons while the cownose rays do not, instead using the smooth tails to fly through the water. If mishandled, however, cownose rays can sting, said Roy Miller, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s fisheries division.
Gordon mentioned that a slew of ray killings started after conservationist Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray in Australia. She said the rays found in Delaware waters are nothing like the ones in Australia.
“These are not stingrays,” said Gordon. “They are not dangerous.”
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