Stingray Beach — Attraction in South Caye Caulker

Unethical. Anyone supporting the feeding and handling of wild animals for entertainment should read the below:

• Feeding creates unnatural behavior: stingrays are incentivised to return daily and form unnaturally large groups, unlike their solitary nature. 

• This disrupts their natural nocturnal foraging habits, induces stress, and affects territorial behavior.  • Fed stingrays may suffer from weakened immune systems and poorer health, and altered behavior makes them more vulnerable to harm elsewhere.  • Feeding can undermine their hunting instincts and migration; such learned behavior can be passed down generations, potentially disrupting breeding and ecological balances. 

• Touching stingrays can cause them harm due to bacteria, oils, or chemicals on human skin; it also increases risk of sunburn or injury to the rays. 

• The operation benefits from tourism revenue; feeding activities drive visitor engagement at the hotel

SAFETY

• Although stingrays are generally gentle, they possess a venomous barb that can inflict serious injury if they feel threatened.  • There are no regulations limiting the number of visitors or monitoring interactions, increasing the likelihood of accidental harm to both people and stingrays

There’s even a sign up on the beach saying the stingrays...

I’m giving this place 1 star because of the way they treat the stingrays. While it may seem like a fun, interactive experience for visitors, allowing people to constantly touch and handle these animals is unhealthy for the stingrays.

Marine life like stingrays, deserve to be treated with care and respect. Constant human contact causes stress and harms their sensitive skin and immune systems. There were no clear guidelines or supervision that ensured the safety and well-being of the stingrays during interactions, people where just touching the animals.

Animal encounters should prioritize the animals’ needs, not tourist amusement. I hope the management reconsiders how they run this activity and makes changes to better protect these...

A lovely place to see these beautiful rays for free. Be respectful to the rays and polite to the owner of Iguana Reef Inn who feeds the rays.

Feeding starts around 5pm (Sept 2025), it is wonderful to see these rays and how they glide around so elegantly. The rays come & go as they please, they are wild animals.

The rays are not dangerous and will not sting you unless you provoke, upset or stand on them so be very respectful of their space and watch where you are standing. Some of them have their stingers and some don’t, this is as a result of local fishermen cutting them off.

Lovely to watch the rays and to hear some...