Stingrays too being overharvested? More of them sold at S'pore fishery ports

Two researchers in Singapore have in recent years observed an unexpected trend at Singapore's fishery ports: There are fewer sharks, but a rising number of stingrays being sold.

- Angelica Ang

Both sharks and stingrays have similar life history traits that make them vulnerable to overharvesting. They take several years to reach reproductive age, and produce few offspring. But more attention is usually paid to the plight of sharks, which are prized for their fins, especially in Asia.

Now, research by independent shark and stingray researchers Naomi Clark-Shen and Kathy Xu shows that stingrays, too, could be suffering from overharvesting.

Through visits to Singapore's fishery ports, they found that the number of stingrays there had almost doubled over the years.

They counted 6,984 stingrays in the first year of their surveys, from September 2017 to September 2018. This rose to 11,649 between March 2024 and March 2025.

In the same period, the number of sharks counted fell from 1,470 to 933.

The duo conducted surveys at Jurong Fishery Port twice a month. The researchers also included figures from Senoko Fishery Port in their counts prior to its closure in March 2024.

They said that two species of stingrays were especially common: the whitespotted whipray (Maculabatis gerrardi) and sharpnose whipray (Maculabatis macrura).

The researchers counted 5,806 stingrays from both species from 2017 to 2018, and 8,598 stingrays from 2024 to 2025.

The two species — both globally endangered — are often sold in hawker centres as sambal-laden barbecue stingray.

Sharks and stingrays belong to a group known as elasmobranchs, which also includes wedgefish and guitarfish.