Cownose rays have been subject to controversial culling campaigns in the US. The science, ethics, and welfare implications of these campaigns raise important questions.
Culling campaigns involving bow-fishing and netting of cownose rays caused suffering to large numbers of animals based on faulty ecological reasoning. Bow-fishing — shooting rays with barbed arrows — causes severe injury before retrieval and often does not result in rapid death. Rays caught in nets during culling operations are frequently beaten or suffocated on deck. The slow reproductive rate of cownose rays means culling has disproportionate population impacts. Even where culling has been reduced, bow-fishing tournaments continue in some states, causing welfare harm to large aggregations of social animals.