Mexican Official Fired for Ordering Rays' Stingers Removed
. A local employee in northern Mexico ordered fishermen to rip the stingers off live rays to protect tourists during Easter week.
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) - Officials in the northern part of Mexico have filed a complaint against a local worker who instructed fishermen to remove the stingers from live rays during Easter week to protect tourists.
Alfonso Durazo the governor of Sonora in northern Mexico, described it as an act of "caveman logic" to protect tourists.
Who could have thought of it? What kind of world do they inhabit? Durazo added that he reported the offence to the Attorney General of Environmental Protection.
Videos of the mutilations circulated this week, shocking people. The fishermen are shown with gloves ripping off the spiny stinger and throwing the stingrays into the Pacific.
Some claimed that the rays would survive and grow their stingers back, but it wasn't clear if this was true or how many rays would survive. It was a smaller, less well-known species of mantas. The exact species involved was not known.
Huatabampo, a city on the Pacific coast, has reportedly been practicing this practice for a long time, but the mayor announced last week that it will cease.
Mayor Juan Jesus Flores claimed that he fired Elizabeth Guerrero Moreno as city environmental director for ordering mass mutilation. The city paid the fishermen to remove the stingers.
Flores stated that this practice has been in place for years and was done improperly.