Stingrays’ Points Well-Taken

The little stingers weren’t so tough after inquisitive budding scientists from Cal State Long Beach cut them down to size.

About 50 stingrays along the Seal Beach coast got their stingers clipped on their own surf Wednesday, just days after a higher than normal number of Memorial Day weekend beachgoers were stung by the stealthy fish.

The clipping was performed by biologists and students who are studying the stingrays’ migration patterns. Their work comes at a time when local lifeguards are seeing a steady rise in the number of stingray bites at some beaches.

Removing the one-inch barbs that pack a painful wallop to humans helps the university’s research but also makes the beaches safer, said Chris Lowe, a Cal State Long Beach biology professor. Since March, the group of researchers have captured, tagged and clipped the stingers once every two weeks.

On Wednesday morning, a 200-foot-long net was put in the water and dragged in place using Jet Skis, said Ross Pounds, a Seal Beach lifeguard. After the rays were caught, the team dragged them onto shore, where they were placed in plastic wading pools. A device inside the pools created bubbles, so the rays could breathe.

Using clippers designed for a dog’s nails, researchers snapped the rays’ stingers off. It’s not easy work: Since the project began, two students have been stung by rays, Lowe said.

Seal Beach has been a favorite haunt of these normally passive bottom-dwellers, so much so that it has the nickname “Ray Bay.” Some people speculate it’s because of the California Edison electric plant, just inland of the San Gabriel River’s mouth. The plant helps create warmer waters--a stingray favorite, Pounds said.

Over the long weekend, about 20 people at Seal Beach were stung by the rays, he said. Pounds said the last three to four years have seen progressively higher numbers of stingray incidents.

“Over the last few years, we’ve had jumps of about 70 to 80 more stings per year,” Pound said. Seal Beach lifeguards normally treat about 400 people for stingray punctures a year, he said.

Victims report that stings make their leg or foot feel like they are on fire, lifeguards say.

People who think they’ve been stung by a ray should submerge the puncture “in as hot a water as they can stand,” said Brian O’Rourke, a Newport Beach lifeguard. They should approach the nearest lifeguard station, or restaurant--any place where they can get access to hot water and a bucket, he said.

“In Corona del Mar, we’ve had 10 to 15 people with their foot in a bucket of hot water at once,” O’Rourke said. “We’ve had a full-on triage for stingrays there.”

Many surfers and fishermen kill rays when they see them, Lowe said. By studying these animals, he said he hopes the city of Seal Beach can find a nonlethal way to let beachgoers and rays coexist.

“These animals appear to move onshore at certain times, under certain conditions,” Lowe said. “When people get stung, it tends to happen in bunches. By isolating the cues that tell us when they’re going to be onshore, we can increase public safety, and also protect the rays.”

When it comes to nasty pokes, however, stingrays aren’t the only culprits, O’Rourke said. Also capable of inflicting unpleasant surprises are jellyfish--whose sting is reportedly less painful--and the lesser-known sculpin fish. Usually reeled in by accident, the latter has spines on its fins which can cause stings that are about as painful as a stingray’s, O’Rourke said.

“Most of the victims are fisherman near piers,” he said.

A concern expressed to scientists, lifeguards and city officials involved in the Seal Beach effort has been that by clipping the rays’ stingers, they are depriving the fish of their defense mechanism, making them vulnerable to predators. However, Lowe said the stingray, a close relative of the shark, has few natural predators in the area.

The effort has been funded in part by the Surfrider Foundation and the USC Sea Grant Program and has the backing of the California Department of Fish and Game, Lowe said.

“People end up feeling good about the ocean if they know people are doing things to keep them from possibly traumatic experiences,” Pounds said. “Ultimately, this is good for people, but also for the beach, and the ocean.”