Beach-Goers Stung by Recent Rise in Ray Attacks

Consider the lowly stingray. It spends its life in sandy obscurity, snuffling around the bottom of the sea in search of worms.

Until some hapless swimmer steps on it. That’s when the shy animal with the barbed tail earns its name, and its nasty reputation.

“I was just standing there and then suddenly I felt something go into my foot and tear out,” said Andrew Guernsey, 12, who got zapped by one of the skillet-sized round stingrays while surfing at Faria Beach near Ventura over Labor Day weekend.

“When it goes in it doesn’t hurt too much, but when it comes out, it just rips.”

Andrew’s experience was played out dozens of times at beaches from Goleta south to San Clemente this summer. The state does not keep records of stingray attacks, but lifeguards and beach-goers report far more victims than in previous years. Scientists can’t explain it, and stingray migrations and behavior are not fully understood. Possible explanations range from climate change to calm seas.

At San Buenaventura State Beach, 24 people have been skewered this summer, compared to past years when few, if any, injuries were reported, said John Regan, lifeguard supervisor who has worked at California beaches for the past 12 years. Those victims do not include an unknown number of swimmers who sought their own medical treatment, he added.

In Los Angeles County, several people per week were treated for stings, particularly at Venice Beach, said Randy De Gregori, chief lifeguard for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

“It was very common this summer. People get stung every year, but I’ve been a lifeguard in these waters since 1964 and I’ve never seen a year like this. It was very common,” De Gregori said.

Richmond Mills, a San Clemente city beach lifeguard, said that during the height of the tourist season, about two people per day were treated for stings.

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The crowds are gone now, but stingrays persist, possibly even in greater numbers than during the summer. The round stingrays, the species ubiquitous at Southern California beaches, flock to shallows in June to mate and again in September and October to bear their young, said Larry Allen, an ichthyologist at Cal State Northridge.

Places such as Seal Beach, home to “ray bay” where the San Gabriel River estuary forms a warm, shallow pool, are notorious stingray haunts. “This is a time of year they are in shallow water all up and down the coast,” Allen said. “They like to give birth in warm waters, in the shallows. It’s not surprising [people] are getting a lot of stings right now.”

Valerie Smith was mindful of stingrays when she went windsurfing near Isla Vista in Santa Barbara County, but she never saw an attack coming on a recent outing. She has trouble walking long distances because a three-quarter-inch tip of stinger remains embedded in her ankle too deep for surgeons to remove.

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“It felt like a spear gun went through my foot,” Smith said. ‘It’s the worst pain I’ve felt in my life. I had no indication there was anything near me. There was just a sudden shock.”

Despite stingrays’ painful stings, few animals in the ocean are more docile. Their cousins, bat rays, are a favorite attraction for kids in petting tanks at marine aquariums throughout the country.

“These are not mean animals. They are not out trying to eat people,” said Dominic Gregorio, a marine biologist with the Southern California Marine Institute in San Pedro. “They are trying to protect themselves. Heck, when you step on them, they think it’s a sea lion trying to eat them.”

The round ray is armed with a three-inch, spear-shaped barb near the base of its tail. In a defensive action, the animal whips its tail and strikes, easily penetrating neoprene wetsuits, skin and muscle tissue. Serrated grooves on the barb contain a toxin that causes intense burning, although stings are rarely fatal. Wounds should be cleared of the barb, rinsed with fresh water and immersed in non-scalding hot water for about 90 minutes.

Scientists are puzzled at the upswing in stings this year. Round rays thrive in warm waters, the reason they flock to shallows, but the surface temperature off the Southern California coast this year has been about 65 degrees, five degrees below normal. Possibly, the western Pacific’s chillier waters may be forcing rays closer to the shore, putting them in more contact with people, Allen said.

Ocean currents, scrambled by El Nino two years ago and La Nina conditions earlier this year, may have changed wind patterns and upwelling, which circulates nutrients from the deep ocean. That may affect stingrays, among other creatures, said Robert Burhans, curator at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Also, calm seas this summer has led to small surf along much of the coast, ideal conditions for stingrays to swim close to the beach to forage for worms, sand crabs and small fish, Gregorio said.

“It’s been such a calm summer. In the past, there hasn’t been as many stingrays around, but they are moving into shallower water, and it seems like there are more of them out there,” said A. Paul Jenkin, chairman of the Ventura County chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.

At beaches where stingrays are common, such as river mouths, swimmers and surfers should take precautions. Stay on surfboards as much as possible. If you walk, shuffle your feet on the bottom to scare the animals away. To avoid all risk, people should probably keep out of the water at beaches where rays are abundant, said Ventura County Health Officer Robert Levin.

You don’t have to tell that to stingray victim Andrew Guernsey. He still likes to go body boarding, although he wears booties on his feet and tries not to walk on the bottom.

“I’m careful now,” Andrew said. “I used to see [stingrays] in the water and I used to like them a lot, but I don’t really like them anymore. I’m not angry at them. They are just animals, a living thing like us, and they don’t deserve to be dead or anything. They are just protecting themselves.”