{"id":1508,"date":"2006-09-05T09:34:28","date_gmt":"2006-09-05T17:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/09\/just_because_it_never_happens_doesnt_mean_that_you_shouldnt_be_scared_that_it_might.html"},"modified":"2006-09-05T09:34:28","modified_gmt":"2006-09-05T17:34:28","slug":"just_because_it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/09\/just_because_it.html","title":{"rendered":"Just Because It Never Happens Doesn’t Mean That You Shouldn’t Be Scared That It Might"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s got to be a local angle here somewhere . . . ah — there it is<\/a>:<\/p>\n

New York beachgoers have a better chance of seeing the Loch Ness monster than getting fatally stung by a stingray like the one that killed “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, experts said yesterday.<\/p>\n

“The odds of that happening anywhere, let alone in New York, are next to impossible,” said Hans Walters, an animal expert at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.<\/p>\n

Cownose and roughtail stingrays typically scour the ocean floor several miles off the Atlantic coast, but they occasionally swim closer to the shore in search of food, Walters said.<\/p>\n

Unlike a 350-pound roughtail at the aquarium, the stingrays most likely to make an appearance in the waters off Coney Island or the Rockaways usually weigh less than 10 pounds, he said.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the best way to avoid being stung by a stingray’s venomous barbs is by shuffling your feet in the sandy water, which tends to scare off marine life.<\/p>\n

“I’ve heard of people bitten by bluefish and pinched by crabs, but I’ve never once heard of anybody stepping on a stingray in New York,” Walters said.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Despite the unlikely odds of being attacked, however, not all Coney Island beachgoers were ready to jump back in the water.<\/p>\n

“Hell, no!” said Queens resident Derrick Morales, 21, who was sunning himself yesterday. “That’s crazy. You don’t know what the hell is out there.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s got to be a local angle here somewhere . . . ah — there it is: New York beachgoers have a better chance of seeing the Loch Ness monster than getting fatally stung by a stingray like the one that killed “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, experts said yesterday. “The odds of that happening anywhere, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fear_mongering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}