June: Cownose Rays Are Really Graceful

Are rays fish? What is the difference between rays and skates? What are the dangers of catching rays? How do you catch one safely? Can you eat them? John Page Williams answers these and other questions about Chesapeake Bay dwelling cownose rays (Rhinoptera bonasus) on this episode of Chesapeake Almanac.

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[maryfinelli]

It’s disturbing to see a piece ostensibly about how graceful cownose rays are instead tell how to very brutally kill them! It’s all the more troubling given that cownose rays are among the fish species with the lowest reproductive rate, which makes their population highly vulnerable to overfishing. It's all the more disappointing that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is broadcasting such information!

As for eating the rays, they excrete ammonia through their skin, so their flesh is said to taste like urine. Reportedly it takes a lot of processing to make them palatable. That may well be why intensive efforts to market them as food, including in Asia and elsewhere, were such a bust.