Save the Bay, Eat a Ray

by Clare Leschin-Hoar, Posted Jul 23rd 2010 @ 2:00PM

Move over Asian carp, you're not the only pesky species to be eyed by the seafood industry as a potential food source. Officials in Virginia have set their sights on the homely cownose ray, whose population has exploded, in part because of a sharp decline in their natural predator, the inland coastal shark. The population boom is bad news for valuable Chesapeake oysters, clams and scallops. Hungry rays have been known to wipe out entire shellfish beds with their powerful crushing jaws.

Mike Hutt, executive director for the Virginia Marine Products Board has been working to develop a market for the red-fleshed cownose ray (renamed a more appealing Chesapeake Ray), but don't expect it to taste like its white-fleshed cousin, skate.

"It's not flaky, and it has a texture and tastes closer to veal or beef," says Hutt.

Ray Popson, seafood manager at Wegmans in Hunt Valley, Maryland introduced the Chesapeake Ray in his store this morning by handing out tasty samples and placing a whopping 30-pound whole ray on display.

"The reaction has been incredible," says Popson. "Some people don't even know it's in the bay or what it can do."

If consumer response continues to go well, Wegmans anticipates rolling the ray out to its Maryland and Virginia stores shortly, and they're not alone in promoting the fish. Processor L.D. Amory & Company, Inc., has been breading and pre-frying strips of ray, calling the product Chesapeake Stingers; while Chef Tim Miller of restaurant Mie N Yu has been serving the ray to customers as a sushi hand roll for nearly a year.

"It's an adventurous dish for a lot of people who aren't familiar with the ray being used as a main food item. It's always on the menu with a paragraph about why we're serving it, the story behind the dish and that it's considered sustainable," says Miller.

And for now, that's true.

"There's not a big fishery for them, so by default, it's sustainable," says Braddock Spear, fisheries policy expert and blogger at Sustainable Ocean Project. "Virginia is trying to find a market for the fish and if they do, they'll put in regulations to keep it a sustainable fishery."

According to experts, that balance may be tricky to maintain. Cownose rays have an 11-month gestation period and give birth to approximately one pup a year. Harvest can take place when the females are still pregnant, effectively denting the next generation.

Filed Under: Food News, Food Politics
Tags: Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Ray, cownose ray, fishing, skate, sustainability, Wegmans

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

7-26-2010 @11:12AM P said... How about we 'humans' aka the virus of the Earth - the real cockroaches - try not breeding as much and building w/ nature instead of raping and pillaging everything in our path for our personal gains...JEEZ!
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7-26-2010 @12:58PM Toni said... hmm... seems to me that we in the south at least have been eating rays... and so have many other people, only it was being marketed at the higher price and listed as "SCALLOPS". I have no qualms with eating them and I raise my own beef, pork, poultry and really enjoy the eggs, too!
People need to stop putting human emotions onto the animals.
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7-26-2010 @11:45AM bil said... Give it ti Mikey, he will eat anything. HA HA
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7-26-2010 @11:53AM hmmmmm said... and do you fry it in oil or has BP provided that for us ?
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7-26-2010 @12:20PM Mary said... that thing looks smart. I don't think I could eat it. Looks to real to me.
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7-26-2010 @1:23PM Numb said... Newsflash: All of the animal protein you eat is "real." Most of it could easily be argued as being "intelligent." Doesn't make eating it wrong - just makes it a part of the natural food chain.

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7-26-2010 @12:29PM skip said... You seriously need to look at the problems that are being caused by farm raised seafood, let alone the fish don't have the flavor of the wild caught fish, In the Ocean or fresh water because of the crap they are being fed. and the poluted enviornment they are raised in. A better control would be birth control reduce the population and you reduce then need, this we have control over sorrry you don't need to give birth to 4, 5 or six or more children. Like the old saying goes you can only put so many head of cattle on an acre of land with out over grazing it..
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7-26-2010 @1:01PM Kimaley said... How about this....Save the Bay...Save the Ray...Then I punch u in the nose for thinking up the ideal...lol ...Stingray power!!!! ...Long live the Stingrays : )
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7-26-2010 @1:17PM bren said... It is cute ,im with you Val couldnt eat it now done looked at it!
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7-26-2010 @1:07PM M.G. Sander said... If you are over 50 years of age and you have eaten a variety of seafood, here's something that you may not be aware of. You have allready eaten rayfish. Years ago...And maybe still today when scallops were scarce, commerical fishermen would catch rays and punch scallop sized pieces from their "wings" and sell them as scallops!!!! FYI!!! ENJOY!!!
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7-26-2010 @1:14PM anotherguy said... That thing has lips and shoulders! No way will I eat that!
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7-26-2010 @6:09PM Eric said... Well, all mammals have shoulders and heads... And brains and nerves and FEELINGS... Might be a good idea to turn into a NON-MEAT (flesh-food) --eater... I t is not only HUMANE and COMPASSIONATE but it ALSO saves one from such worries as mercury-poisoning, heart-attacks, cancer, synthetic-hormone-effects and many more etc....

VEGETARIAN IS THE WAY TO GO !!!

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7-26-2010 @1:42PM Diana said... Aw, it is so cute and adorable! Hm, they say it is sustainable to eat the ray but based on that they only give birth to 1 pup and it takes 11 months, it doesn't sound too sustainable. They also mentioned that they can harvest the females while pregnant. They need to have regulations if this turns into reality. Plus, it seems like this might turn into a quantity over quality type of business since the guy Hutt and company think there are so many rays. If they keep living in that fantasy world, they might not care how much they fish and eventually lead to what is known as overishing. This can lead to a disbalance in the niche that the ray has in the ocean. Every species has a niche, a special role, that they lead in their environment and only they can fulfill. That can lead to a bloom in what ever the ray controls, like the shellfish, which can lead to another event that might not be desirable. Who knows, the sharks might be temporarily gone right now but come back or maybe they are searching for another food source since the humans are taking the ray for food. Humans believe that because there is an abundance of something, you can take it and use it, but that is what they thought of fishing fish in the sea, and now look, we have the over fishing problem. They should do more research with marine biologists and professionals before they take on the full task of fishing the red-fleshed cownose ray and weigh out the benefits and side effects of fishing it for human consumption.
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7-26-2010 @1:56PM Harry Hurt said... I agree with angiebaby----If they can eat this, why not pigeons in NYC? Too bad we cant eat the sea gulls in Michigan.
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7-26-2010 @2:02PM ralphgmiami said... If this fish is a predator, the meat is not healthy because it contains a lot of toxins. Meat from predators takes a toll on your kidneys and liver. For example, eating predators such as sharks, wolves, snakes, monkeys, dogs, cats will shorten your lifespan. Chemical analysis has found this to be true. If you make a cow eat cow brains, it's meat becomes toxic. That's also one of the reasons they get mad cow's disease. It's even in the bible that you shouldn't eat animals that are predators, or those with round hooves like horses as their bone marrow is toxic(they use horses marrow for glue).
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7-27-2010 @8:12PM LeilaNami said... You're a little incorrect on the mad cow disease. The cow eating the other cow's brain will not spread mad cow disease however if another cow eats the cow that has eaten another cow's brains, THAT will be mad cow disease.

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7-26-2010 @2:19PM spike said... I once overheard two guys from the Chesapeake area joking around,one asked the other";what do you do if you find a dead person in the bay? The other guy replied;pull the crabs of him and throw the body back in
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7-27-2010 @10:21PM JW said... I always thought those big scallops I got in the store looked a little too perfect.
If we put the sharks back in the bay as natural predators, then we can catch and
harvest the rays AND the sharks.
Where's my charcoal???
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7-05-2011 @1:58AM ralph d jeffords said... I just had Chespeake Ray that I barbecued for this Fourth of July that I bought at Wegman's, and had never heard of it before. The comment about fake scallops and rays are complete BS--I'd always heard that the fake scallops were mad from SKATE wings (not rays). Indeed the Cownose Ray does taste like beef and has a consistency similar to flank steak. I am all for a controlled fishery that will reduce the population of Cownose Rays to a manageable size.( the Brown-nose ray, a close cousin of the Cownose Ray, is a different story)
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