It’s been a rough week–well, year. After days on end of activism in response to brutal headlines, sometimes you need a breather. These sea puppies are the answer. But they need our help, too.
Their actual name is, of course, rays, a group of cartilaginous fish comprising more than 600 species. Unfortunately, more than 500 of these species are on the IUCN Red List, threatened by human fishing.
Despite their clear sentience and complexity, rays are violently killed by the thousands for human food and medicine–with the largest, manta rays, often even being cut apart into pieces while still conscious because their enormous bodies don’t fit onto boats.
Close to my home, another fight has been unfolding for the past several years over the much smaller cownose ray. Every May, these gentle rays migrate to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where females give birth to a single live pup after an 11-month-long gestation period.
As the rays arrive to labor over their long-awaited newborns, fishermen armed with arrows lurk, preparing for an annual killing contest. They don’t discriminate, often shooting pregnant rays and babies alike. Until three years ago.
In 2017, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed a bill into law placing a moratorium on the savage killing contests through July 2019, during which time the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was to develop a ray management plan.
Yet the DNR failed to do so in time, necessitating further protection for cownose rays upon the expiration of the moratorium. Thus, activists from the Save the Rays Coalition banded together and successfully achieved an extension on the moratorium until a management plan is created.
But it’s been a full year, and there’s still no sign of a more permanent ban on cruel ray killing contests. It’s time to demand that cownose rays are shielded once and for all from being mercilessly hunted as part of a twisted competition.
Even amidst multiple national crises, sea puppies have managed to warm my heart ever so slightly. Join me in making sure they’ll have a safe harbor in the waters of our Bay for years to come.