WASHINGTON — Brutal and wasteful. That’s how supporters of a ban on a fishing tournament targeting the cownose ray describe annual contests that encourage participants to kill the rays that nurse their pups in the Chesapeake Bay.
But contest supporters say they’re needed to curb the ray population: Watermen insist the rays arrive in droves and scoop up oysters like vacuum cleaners.
Both sides testified in hearings before a Maryland Senate committee during the General Assembly session in Annapolis.
Dennis Fleming, who runs a fishing guide business, told lawmakers that “killing an animal for fun, and then throwing it into a dumpster to rot, goes against everything I’ve ever been taught about respect for the Chesapeake Bay.”
But the methods used during the tournaments aren’t so different from what happens in ocean fishing when big fish are brought aboard, said Robert T. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association.
“They take a bat and they hit them in the head,” he told lawmakers. “That’s the first thing they do. So it’s not so different from other types of fishing, the way they’re doing it.”
Brown’s argument is that the rays do serious damage to the oyster population in the bay. “The cownose ray is very destructive to our Chesapeake Bay,” he told legislators.
Fleming took issue with that. “The main culprit for depressed oyster and clam populations are squarely blamed on human beings,” he said.
Recent studies have debunked the notion that the rays are responsible for the reduced oyster population in the bay, said supporters of the killing ban. They contend that while oysters are a part of the rays’ diet, the ray is not a threat to the shellfish population.
A bill passed by lawmakers calls for a study of ray fisheries by the Department of Natural Resources. The moratorium will remain in effect until July 1, 2018.
