Steve Irwins Death Will Help Save Stingrays( & Reefs!) in the Caymans:

[elehhhhna]

A ban on lifting stingrays from the water is one of many new draft regulations aimed at protecting the wild stingray populations that interact with tourists in areas of the North Sound. These Sandbar/Stingray City Regulations were outlined by Director of the Department of Environment Gina Ebanks–Petrie at the annual Tourism Conference Friday. Stingrays are also to be designated as a protected species and feeding them is to be limited. Fishing or removing any marine life from the area, the wearing of footwear close to rays and the reef and anchoring boats over the top of the sandbar and shallow coral areas will be prohibited under the proposed regulations. A ban on lifting stingrays from the water is one of many new draft regulations aimed at protecting the wild stingray populations that interact with tourists in areas of the North Sound.

From Caymanian Compass

[Kutjara]

1. What a sickening photo.

Get those pasty, smug, self-satisfied tourists the fuck out of there. They have no goddamned business pissing around with wildlife like that. It's none of your business, assholes! Get out of the water and waddle off home!

[elehhhhna]

3. Ya think?

I went once, on a 10 person boat w/ 2 guides, maybe 10 years ago...before I woke up to conservation...fact is, if you snorkel or dive, you can see a heckuva lot more & better in 5 feet of water anywhere on the island.

Who wants to touch them anyway?

The idiots who stand on coralheads are the ones I'd like to speargun.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. ZOMG!

Check out this smug, self-centered asshole!

[Swamp Rat]

6. What, you don't like honey?

?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. ...

He's got no god-damned business pissing around with wildlife like that!

[Kutjara]

8. Of course, because there's no difference at all...

...between raising animals for food and just tormenting them for entertainment, right?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. Better ask these assholes...

What a couple of animal molestors! THEY MAKE ME SO MAD!

[Kutjara]

10. Funny, I don't see anyone...

...in the picture shoving the ducks' heads into buckets of water or trying to ride on their backs, yet the "stingray fondlers" lift the animals out out of the water and attempt to ride them.

But hey, if you support animal cruelty for fun, there are plenty of places you can go to enjoy yourself. I hear you can see bears dance in Thailand.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. ZOMG!

Don't ever get me started on those sons of bitches that pull fish out of water!

[Kutjara]

13. Exactly. You finally understand. n/t

[Beausoir]

2. I was just there and had an opportunity to do the StingRay City thing...

I passed. It's a ridiculous event. Thousands of sweaty bodies crammed into one place, manhandling the rays.
We rented a jeep and took off across the island instead. To a beautiful beach where we walked in the water and marvelled at the beauty of Grand Cayman. We could see the flash bulbs from stingray city all the way out there.

This is a perfect example of the herd mentality. And people pay $60 bucks for this "experience". They missed out on seeing the rest of the island, sampling some fantastic local cuisine and really enjoying the beauty.

Monkey see...monkey do.

[Divernan]

4. Touching/feeding them should have been banned long ago.

Rays are magnificent to watch underwater when they are behaving in their natural way, i.e., settling into the sand to camoflage themselves while they wait for their next meal to swim by, or flying through the water with their wings flapping. To me they are the most beautiful animal to watch under water, mainly because they move slower than sharks or dolphins, and they are not aggressive - that is unless you should be stupid enough to swim right up on top of one, or step on one who is hiding in the sand. Good divers do neither of those things. The Stingray City experience is as bogus and unnatural as the shark feeding scams -

[elehhhhna]

15. It gets worse: Cayman may be getting a Swim with the pathetic , exploited

dolphins waterpark. Big fight going on now. Free dolphins (vs. slave dolphins)don't even frequent the area.

[Catherine Vincent]

11. I have to confess, I almost did the stingray thing in the Cayman's

back in 2003 when I was on a cruise. We had tickets and everything but the outfit we booked with miscommunicated with the cruise ship and left us. I was pissed.

I think it's harmless what the people are doing. Aren't they just feeding them and touching them?

[elehhhhna]

14. The rays have gathered at the outlet tof North Sound for 100 years--

because that's where the fishermen would clean their catch ever day & drop th etrash-fish etc. S'rays figured this out and come for the free food. Some dive co. decided to exploit this many years ago. When it started, there were small groups and not so much grabbing at the rays.

Those rays are relatively tame but the 50-person "excursions" to the shallow sandbar are atrocious. Dive Masters (and idiot tourists) now pick rays out of the water so folks who don't scuba can touch them.

I've seen the damage a ray can do to ones arm or leg if they "hickey" (they suck their food up lke a vaccuum and have plates rather than teeth which grind the food into smaller pieces...here's a pic of a small hickey...but I met a man who was missing a large and apparently tasty part of his muscular forearm...

[Aristus]

16. Okay, I have to confess, I DID do the "swim with the stingrays" when I

was in the Caymans. I can only say in my own defense (and the defense of the group I was with) that we didn't mistreat the rays. Everybody was very careful with them and treated them with respect and even affection. They were very docile, and feeding them was fun. Looking back now, I can certainly see why this would upset people, and I don't plan to ever do it again. But I think it awakened some people to the wonder and beauty of marine wildlife. This is a good thing.