12-Year-Old Boy Catches Stingray, Helps Her Deliver 12 Babies
A 12-year-old Australian boy found himself playing midwife to a pregnant stingray after lifting her from the water.
Miller Wilson, who has a YouTube channel to chronicle his wildlife exploits, enthusiastically narrated the Dec. 1-posted video as he pulled some of the babies out of the ray (watch above).
"After going for a 30 minute walk up the beach, I came back to find a Stingray lying next to my Kayak!!" he wrote in the YouTube description. "So after thinking that there was something wrong with her, I found out that she was pregnant... and I ended up witnessing the delivery of 12 Baby Stingrays!!" Miller added that the mother "appeared to be struggling and I think appreciated the help."
He fondly called her "Big Mama."
The full-length YouTube video also features Miller jumping from his kayak to catch another ray. He carries it ashore and shows off its barb.
One expert, while noting the Queensland boy's intelligence and comfort in handling the rays, said Miller's good intentions could have gone awry.
"What he is doing is inherently dangerous and risky behavior," Perry Hampton, vice president of animal husbandry at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, told The Huffington Post.
"I don’t know whether he had been stung yet but he appears to be very lucky if he has not. Although he seems to be concerned about the well-being of the rays, handling them in this manner could be detrimental to them as well.
"It’s never a good idea to handle wild animals," Hampton continued. "The act alone causes stress. This is something that is difficult to measure but it affects them negatively in many ways. Added to that is the way he is handling them by picking them up by their spiracles. Comparing it to lifting us up by our nostrils is overstating it, but you get the point."
Click here to see Miller's entire video and let us know what you think.
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