Stingrays Aren’t Out To Get You!

Photo by tornicoqui

Let’s make this abundantly clear:

• Stingrays do not attack people

• Stingrays do not eat people

• Stingrays get their name from the defensive barb on their tail

There are stories on the front-page at Yahoo and CNN.com about a woman being killed by a stingray in Florida today. Why is this “Headline News?” Well, a) because of the Crocodile Hunter’s tragic death, and b) because headlines like “OFFICIALS: Woman killed by stingray! Updated 23 Minutes Ago!” get lots of clicks. It’s already CNN.com’s Most Popular article today.

This is misleading: even the toned-down “Woman killed after stingray strikes her” paints an unfair portrait of what happened here. Open the article, and you’ll find out that this woman was not STUNG by a stingray - a jumping stingray smacked her in the face! More specifically, an eagle ray, likely spooked by their boat, jumped out of the water and happened to collide with the unfortunate woman from Michigan.

However, the unfortunate woman from Michigan didn’t die because she got hit by a stingray - she died because she got hit in the face with a 75 pound fish! It’s not even clear yet whether the woman was killed by the initial impact, the fall onto the boat, or hitting her head on the floor. I’m fairly skeptical, though, about how a stingray flying towards someone could still manage to sting them, as the article implies.

I wish that CNN and Yahoo would be more responsible when they report something like this, because there was no shortage of stories about people wantonly killing random stingrays after Steve Irwin’s death, as if all of a sudden the ocean wasn’t safe. The stingrays have always been there before, and if you haven’t heard about people getting stung before, that’s because it’s usually not a big deal. If you lived on the bottom of the ocean and got stepped on every day, you’d probably want to defend yourself too!

As long as you’re not chasing a stingray close enough to get stabbed in the heart, there’s not a whole lot these animals can do to hurt you. Please don’t overreact, and please don’t blame the animal for its natural reaction. This woman’s death is a tragedy and I feel bad for everyone around her, but I also feel bad that the news coverage isn’t about how sad this freak accident is, but instead about getting page-hits through fear-mongering.