Shore Dive recommendations

[JFS]

Bolt cutters would be better....

 

[Nursediver]

Thanks, all. We stayed at BA last year and did not shore dive. I would love to go in with wire cutters, but the rays have had their barbs cut and can't hunt, otherwise, I would - seriously! Any other shore dive recommendations beside BA? Thanks!

 

[Nursediver]

Thanks Brewdiver! We are traveling all night and have to see how we feel, but we just may!

 

[ggunn]

Thanks, all. We stayed at BA last year and did not shore dive. I would love to go in with wire cutters, but the rays have had their barbs cut and can't hunt, otherwise, I would - seriously! Any other shore dive recommendations beside BA? Thanks!

Do stingrays use their barbs for hunting? I would have thought that they were defensive weapons only.

 

[Nursediver]

They bury themselves in the sand and whip it up when a fish comes by. At least I thought so.

 

[ggunn]

They bury themselves in the sand and whip it up when a fish comes by. At least I thought so.

I don't know for sure but that doesn't sound like a viable hunting strategy to me. It seems to me that a tool/weapon for procuring food would more likely be located at the other end of the animal using it. I have seen rays sort of snuffling through the sand; it looked to me like they were chasing burrowing critters.

Of course, that's not to say that de-barbing rays doesn't make them less able to survive in the wild even if it's only depriving them of a defensive weapon. I wonder if they grow back.

 

[DandyDon]

I think the stinger is only for defense as described in Southern stingray - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and they can grow back if they survive, at least according to popular internet sources. The facility may have a program for catching and reclipping them as they rejuvenate, but the papered rays are socialized to people feeding them. Diver hand feed them in the wild at other destinations with no problems. They using their mouth suction in feeding and in giving hickies to divers at those other locations.

Destroying property while vising Mexico would be a crime I would not want to be part of tho. We have private zoos all over the US. Ever vandalize one of them?

 

[Coralcop]

They bury themselves in the sand and whip it up when a fish comes by. At least I thought so.

Negative, the barbs are defensive only. The rays hunt in the sand and use suction to feed like a filter feeder

 

[1KWIK_69]

Negative, the barbs are defensive only. The rays hunt in the sand and use suction to feed like a filter feeder

When the comment was made about them spearing their food with their tail, I was having flashbacks from the movie Alien! :shocked2:

 

[DandyDon]

When the comment was made about them spearing their food with their tail, I was having flashbacks from the movie Alien! :shocked2:

I don't remember that scene? I think a lot of Irwin fans were unfair to rays over his accident.