Stingray Leaps Into Boat, Stabs Man in Chest

[KittyWampus]

Stingray Leaps Into Boat, Stabs Man in Chest

LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Florida (Oct. 19) - A stingray jumped into the boat of an 81-year-old Florida man and stabbed him in the chest, leaving its long barb stuck in him, authorities said.

James Bertakis was in critical condition Thursday morning. The man was boating with his grown granddaughter and her friend Wednesday afternoon when the rare attack occurred. The women were able to steer the boat back to Bertakis' home in Lighthouse Point where they called authorities.

"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can't believe it."

Bertakis was conscious when paramedics arrived. Surgeons were able to remove some of the barb, but were not able to locate the rest and feared it may have migrated. Bertakis suffered a closed chest wound, collapsed lung and may have to undergo open-heart surgery, rescue officials said.

The roughly 5-foot wide, 30-pound stingray died on the boat, firefighters said. They kept it in a plastic bag and on ice until Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Officers picked it up, Sullivan said.

snip
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/stingray-leaps-into-boat-stabs-man-in/20061019043009990003?ncid=NWS00010000000001

I know many will scoff at this idea... but it's as if the Stingrays are trying to tell us something... a cry for help?

[truthisfreedom]

1. !

wtf?

[Dhalgren]

2. Mother of god! (Meaning Semele, of course).

This is just too strange, especially after the "Crock Hunter" guy...

[wtmusic]

3. 5 feet wide and 30 lbs?

Stingrays leaping into the air?

Something doesn't add up here.

[KittyWampus]

5. they have a photo on the webpage.

[wtmusic]

19. Linky no worky nt

[KittyWampus]

28. fixed. And I can't find mention of rays "flying" above water.

but then, it seems unlikely that an 80 year old man could pull that a big a creature into his boat.

[Book Lover]

41. Please don't say that around my 78-year-old father

He pulls clam rakes that weigh upwards of 50 lbs into his little boat on a near-daily basis. It's the stopping of physical activity that kills ya.

[shadowknows69]

12. sounds like a manta

stingrays are mostly bottom dwellers aren't they?

[Lance_Boyle]

23. mantas are *massive* and have no stingers n/t

[shadowknows69]

25. 5 feet wide isn't a small ray

I know mantas get much bigger than that but I was thinking psecifically of their tendency to leap.

[onenote]

46. it was a spotted eagle ray ...not uncommon for them to breach

I've seen it myself.

see also: http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/fish/Aetobatus_narinari/more_info.html

" These rays swim close to the surface and can occasionally be seen jumping clear out of the water (known as ‘breaching'"

[Phredicles]

4. Stingray (D-FL) Leaps Into Boat, Stabs Man in Chest; Why didn't Bill

Clinton do more to prevent it?

--Coming up on Pox News...

[prodigal_green]

6. and elephants

are pissed as hell too. Apparently rampages are up all over the elephant world.

[KittyWampus]

9. NYTimes mag article about it. Elephants raping and killing rhinos

Animal behavior becoming violent and depraved due to stress and break down of environment and social structure.

[Forrest Greene]

7. A Cry Of

..."Enough's enough, humans."

[Boomer]

8. Maybe this is a reach, but...

Just recently there were several articles posted on DU about rampaging elephants. Seems the isolation and reduced numbers of elephant troops has led to a breakdown in social order and even sanity. Young male elephants are attacking humans and just generally going berserk.

So I can't help but wonder when two dissimilar species begin acting in such an atypically aggressive manner. Coincidence? Or the leading edge of behavioral meltdowns caused by environmental stress?

Heck, even the approaching polar shift could be responsible!

[KittyWampus]

11. Thanks, you posted what I was getting at- they're Nature's way of trying

to tell us something is wrong.

[shadowknows69]

14. Doctor Rat

<http://www.hardsf.net/cgi-bin/apf4/amazon_products_feed.cgi?Operation=ItemLookup&ItemId=1569247145>

I'm just going to keep posting this in the stingray threads until I find someone else who has read this twisted novel.

[jilln]

32. I was about to say I'd read it, when I remembered

this is what I read:



Yours looks interesting!

[shadowknows69]

33. You should check it out

I read it like 20 years ago I'm gonna have to find a copy for a re-read now.

[AlienGirl]

40. I read it, Kotzwinkle is a good writer

He Knows Stuff.

Tucker

[medeak]

10. glabal warming

was told yesterday by friend there was evidence global warming was the cause of increase in animal hostilities

[Boomer]

13. Any source for that?

I'm not discounting the possibility -- far from it -- but I would love a more detailed accounting of exactly what behavioral mechanisms are being affected and how.

Of course, that presumes that we've figured what going on, which isn't necessarily the case. Change is happening so fast that we may never fully understand the process of dysfunction.

[OKthatsIT]

16. ELF - HAARP waves could also be involved

look it up

[bluedeminredstate]

15. Can someone help me with this

I cannot imagine the mechanics involved in a relatively flat object "jumping" up through water and up and over the side of a boat. I must lack imagination or some basic knowledge of stingrays, but I sure as hell can't imagine such a feat. Can someone explain how this could be possible?
:dunce:

[KittyWampus]

24. They have "wings"? Don't know how to describe their physiology

[savemefromdumbya]

17. I've never seen a stingray jump?

this must be a new breed?

[onenote]

47. was a spotted eagle ray: breaching is not uncommon (post #46)

[savemefromdumbya]

18. I've never seen a stingray jump?

this must be a new breed?

[wtmusic]

20. The guy grabbed it

and pulled it into the boat to impress his granddaughter. The stingray had a problem with that.

Much more realistic scenario.

[Whoa_Nelly]

26. Stingrays do leap

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/topics/lh_stingray_city.htm

<snip>
Southern Stingrays have been observed singly, in pairs, and in loose aggregations. Although most stingrays are bottom-dwellers, the Southern Stingray has been reported to leap above the surface, producing a loud clap upon re-entry. Such leaping has been attributed to attempts to free themselves of parasites, but stingrays have overlapping dermal denticles (scales) that preclude most skin parasites; I feel that these leaping behaviors are more likely associated with some kind of social display (mating or maybe even announcing territorial boundaries).

[savemefromdumbya]

27. thank you!

you learn something new every day!

[Tesha]

30. Cow rays in petting pools slap all the time.

The cow rays that aquariums often display in petting pools
often "slap" the surface of the water. I could imagine that
if they wanted to, they could broach fully above the surface
at least a little ways.

Tesha

[Kagemusha]

21. Yes er, let me scoff at this idea. Please do.

The stingrays are just doing what stingrays do. It's not personal.

[KittyWampus]

29. How about their unusually aggressive behavior is linked to enviro. stress

caused by humans?

So it's less like "they" means individual rays are trying to speak but "they" means a part of the organic whole we live in is in pain and humans have the cognitive ability to recieve that message.

[Kagemusha]

35. Whether we humans deserve painful deaths is irrelevant to rays.

That's just humans trying to humanize nature.

[BootinUp]

22. Damn! that is really weird.

Are these animals under unusual enviro induced stress or something?

[Megahurtz]

31. Wow, Stingrays are going bonkers.

A month before the Alligator Hunter guy died, I went to the local Aquarium. When I went to the "petting pools" there were lots of small sharks and small stingrays, I touched one stingray and it tried to jump up out of the pond at me several times. It was just weird. Maybe they are trying to tell us something.:shrug:

[xultar]

34. Must have been protesting the deaths of his friends in Aussie land.

[SmokingJacket]

36. The rays were acting crazy at the Jersey shore this summer.

They were swimming along, sticking their fins up over the surface. They looked **exactly** like shark fins!!

it freaked me out but good.

[Zhade]

37. It's no more a cry for help than "Intelligent Design" is science.

Sheesh!

[redqueen]

38. The animals are turning against us.

It was only a matter of time really.

We're lucky the plants can't revolt. Or can they?

[Phillycat]

39. I, for one, welcome our new stingray Overlords.

[Phredicles]

43. Good one!

:rofl:

[ghostsofgiants]

49. We are all frightened and horny...

But we can't let some killer stingrays keep us from living and scoring!

[smirkymonkey]

42. Any Oceanographers care to weigh in?

[onenote]

48. not an oceanographer, but see post #46

I am long time scuba diver who has a particular fondness for filming spotted eagle rays. I've seen them breach next to boats in the past. Never saw one land in a boat, but not shocked that it could happen.

[SKKY]

44. Are Stingrays becoming the new Postal Workers?

Why the hell are they going bugshit crazy all the sudden?

[stanwyck]

45. They listen to Rush. That causes ocean rage

and they attack.

[ForrestGump]

50. Manta rays and eagle rays jump often, but smaller stingrays can also do

so. I've seen some huge southern stingrays, too -- 'aggressive,' to use a loaded word, is not what they are. The dude's lucky to be alive with the barb of such a large stingray stuck in his chest...shock, if nothing else, could do the trick.

Over a decade ago, there was a whole rash of 'attacks' by 'flying barracuda,' in which great barracuda off Florida ended up inside people's boats and did damage (mostly to the boats, sometimes to the people). What most of the sensationalist media reports neglected to mention was that, in some of those cases, the 'cudas were hooked at the time. Not all of them, but some of them. My first reaction to this news report would be that the ray was also hooked or otherwise captured, but it is also entirely conceivable that it jumped into the boat through pure chance and that, in the ensuing chaos, the man got nailed by its barb....what is really unlikely is that it was a killer ray, perhaps trained by the Cubans, who leaped at the man with the intent of taking him out, but that's how it's inevitably reported.

Back when the barracuda were leaping from the water in record numbers, I idly wondered if the water quality thereabouts was a factor -- the water off much of Florida, Florida Bay in particular, is so polluted and nutrient-loaded now that -- if I were a fish -- I wouldn't be eager to stay submerged, either. Pollutants can affect behavior, so there may actually be something to this idea...I don't know much about the topic (a bit outside my areas of specialization, other than as a factor I'm generally aware of), but a bit of a read about endocrine disruptors could be instructive.


Hold on a damn second...I just looked at the news report and they're saying that this is the culprit:

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_photos/0f/01/20061019082109990008

That, friends and neighbors, is a spotted eagle ray, a wonder to behold underwater -- formations of almost 40 of these were a fixture at one of my research locales and the sight of them remain to me the epitome of grace -- that's possessed with less significant weaponry than a stingray. It is not a stingray -- ray, yes, but not a stingray. it does jump, though, routinely. This makes me kind of wonder exactly how the hell he was impaled: surgeons removed something from the victim's chest (his heart, no less) and eagle rays have at least a couple of spines at the base of their tails, but they're close to the base and it'd be a lot harder to be skewered by an eagle ray than it would be by a stingray. Strange things happen, I guess...