I’ve swam with sting rays on several occasions and they pretty much ignored me on all those, one time a friend’s dad accidentally pulled one of their tales thinking it was a bit of rope coming from under a rock but it just darted off, my overall impression was of fairly peacful animals who’d just like to be left to their own devices.

Mind you I wasn’t holding them in a head lock or hitting them with meat or anything. Steve Irwin may have liked animals but from what I saw he never treated them with much respect, more like a child kicking an ant hill to see what happens, it’s not a huge surprise to anyone who’s seen his ‘documentaries’ that he ended on the wrong end of a stingray’s barb.

Edit. Obviously it’s very sad though, I was just annoyed by the news coverage of the whole thing.