ATTACKED BY STINGRAY

Evening Star, Issue 23128, 30 November 1938, Page 13

ATTACKED BY STINGRAY

BATHING TRAGEDY RECALLED ACCIDENTS VERY RACE The unusual and tragic death of a girl when she was attacked by a stingray while bathing in shallow water in one of the bays on the Thames coast this week directs attention to the habits of this fish. Happily it is un common round the Otago coast, but is often encountered in the north and also in the Marlborough Sounds. Contrary to general opinion, accidents through contact with the stingray are very rare, mainly because it is just as anxious to avoid trouble as are bathers They are not mud feeders, but are .requently seen on beaches and banks where cockles and. shellfish have a footing, for they are shellfish eaters. The ray family is a wide one, distributed all over the world, and all members have the same family likeness-. The long tail carries about halfway along it a long spine (sometimes serrated, sometimes not), which represents the dorsal fin and varies in length according to the size of the ray, up to six and eight inches. The sipine inflicts a painful wound, and is covered by a slime which causes intense inflammation ; there is no poison gland, as commonly believed. Stingrays are frequently hauled ashore in nets about the outer beaches, and are extremely common in the Marlborough Sounds, where they reach very large size, up to four and five hundred pounds weight. As they follow the tide up the sounds beaches they can be approached closely by boat, looking like bluish-black flat rocks under the water, yet from the shore they are seldom seen, for they are shy of disturbance and make for deep water if approached. Were this not so, accidents would be frequent, for there i# no doubt about their numbers. If sounds holiday people are nervous about stingrays, a few heavy stones thrown into the water will dear the bathing space of any likely danger on an unfrequented beach.