Every march, the Cownose Stingrays migrate into the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic. They come to give birth, mate, and eat. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
We like seafood – a lot. Many
species are disappearing. That’s
causing a ripple effect that’s
changing the patterns of sea creatures.
In the Cheseapeake Bay, it’s an invasion
of stingrays. The cownose stingray
is eating oysters that are commercially
raised there. Some people say: if
you can’t beat them, eat them. Sabri
Ben-Achour has the story:
Transcript
We like seafood – a lot. Many
species are disappearing. That’s
causing a ripple effect that’s
changing the patterns of sea creatures.
In the Cheseapeake Bay, it’s an invasion
of stingrays. The cownose stingray
is eating oysters that are commercially
raised there. Some people say: if
you can’t beat them, eat them. Sabri
Ben-Achour has the story:
In a little boat just off shore of Virginia’s Cone River, AJ Erskine leans overboard. He is using 20-foot poles with gaping jaws full of long needle like teeth to scrape the bottom of the emerald colored river.
“These things are called hand tongs.”
Up comes a pile of oysters. They’re only about a year old.
“We don’t feel comfortable giving them more than one year of a chance.”
That’s because Erskine is worried about stingrays, specifically Cownose Rays. Every march, the winged sea creatures migrate into the bay from the Atlantic. They come to give birth, mate, and eat.
“What they do is flap their wings, put the oysters in a pile, and crunch the shells, and they go through a seed bed of oysters in a weekend.”
Erskine says it’s become a huge problem for oyster farmers.
The rays also damage the underwater environment. They uproot aquatic grasses, destroying nurseries for fish and blue crabs.
Some biologists believe there are more rays because a main predator – the shark – has been overfished out in the Atlantic. Tiger Sharks in this area have declined 99% over the past 30 years.
Other biologists say it’s that strict limits on fishing in the Chesapeake Bay have meant fewer rays caught accidentally in giant nets. Whatever the reason, oyster farmers are looking for a way to control the rays.
A hundred miles inland, in Richmond, Mead Amery thinks he has a solution.
“Depending on how you prepare it, it’s delicious.”
Avery is a seafood distributor. He and officials with the State of Virginia want you to try stingray.
“The texture is wonderful, it has a veal pork type of texture.”
It’s been a tough sell so far.
“People hear ray and think, ‘I don’t wanna eat that!’”
Marketers are trying hard though. They don’t call it Cownose Ray but rather Chesapeake Ray. They’re pushing the ray in restaurants from Virginia to Japan. And it may take off – after all, lobsters used to be considered insects of the sea and only the poor ate them. The popular Chilean Sea Bass used to be a nuisance by-catch.
But, while those cases offer hope for marketers, they carry warnings for environmentalists. Both Sea Bass and Maine lobsters were dangerously overfished because of their popularity. Bob fisher is a biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He knows full well there are risks involved in going after stingrays.
“You remove a top predator like that from the food chain, we don’t know what the repercussions would be.”
He says stingrays are slow to mature and give birth to only one offspring at a time. And no one even knows how many there are. But Fisher is still very much open to the idea of harvesting the rays given the problems they seem to be causing for oyster growers.
“I look at things that are in our oceans as resources, it’s our responsibility to take care of our resources, but it’s also a resource that’s there that can be, and I believe should be, utilized for humans.”
Fisher is working with the Marine Products Board, and the Department of Agriculture to come up with a plan to strictly limit fishing of the ray to what’s sustainable.
So, if the whole thing is successful, you might find Chesapeake Ray on a plate near you.
For The Environment Report, I’m Sabri Ben-Achour.
