Upon the horrifying discovery of a slaughtered carcass left unattended on a popular beach, a small coastal town was split.
On the weekend, an astonished local was strolling down the shoreline close to the jetty in Beachport, a beachside community in South Australia, 311 kilometers southeast of Adelaide, the state capital.
In an effort to find answers, she posted a heartbreaking picture of the enormous stingray carcass lying on the sand with its fins severed to the neighborhood Facebook page.
I’m very certain that doing this at the beach is prohibited. Not something I want to see on a relaxing beach stroll,” the lady said as the description for the disturbing picture.
The post received hundreds of comments, many of which described the behavior as revolting and cruel. This incited broad community revulsion.
What a terrible shame. One individual said, “Didn’t realize someone was so hungry they’d do that to such a gorgeous gentle creature.”
‘Disrespectful way to treat a live creature,’ a different person said. Don’t kill anything if you’re not intending to eat it.
Some others believed it could have perished naturally and washed up on the coast.
Others thought the body was a shark, which required explanation from Graeme Ploenges, head of the South East Amateur Surf Fishing Club.
He said, “Cutting off the wings from a stingray isn’t cruel if it’s killed first; it’s no different than chopping up a sheep after cutting its neck.”
“It’s not a shark and would have been captured off the shore. People from nations to our north engage in shark finning since they just want the fins.
Sharks are bled before their fins are removed; we save the flesh and discard the fins.
There are no size or bag limits for the capture of rays in South Australia, unlike several other states.
Mr Ploenges said it was possible the carcass washed ashore but believes someone more likely had ‘done it there and left’.
‘It’s not something you can avoid — there’s no way to avoid catching (stingrays),’ he told Mount Gambier News.
‘There are definitely a lot of circumstances where if you do release it they’re probably going to die anyway, it would be cruel.’