Surprise! Hilton Head tourist catches a stingray, then helps it give birth, video shows

When Jay Dunlap headed to a Sea Pines beach Wednesday, he was not expecting to become a stingray OB-GYN.

But that’s what happened.

The West Virginia native and regular Hilton Head vacationer had headed to the beach near the Sea Pines Beach Club. A regular catch-and-release fisherman, he had spent his vacation bringing in an assortment of fish, sharks and a stingray.

On Wednesday, Dunlap caught a second stingray. He noticed, though, that it seemed a bit hefty.

It wasn’t until Dunlap rolled the stingray over to pull the hook out that he noticed something a little peculiar — a small tale sticking out of a pocket.

The stingray was pregnant, he realized.

And he remembered — he’s seen a YouTube video on this same scenario!

He remembered that the man in the video had massaged the stingray until the baby stingrays were born.

So Dunlap got to work.

He started rubbing Mama Stingray when — almost immediately—the first baby popped out.

He did it again.

Another slid out, following its sibling.

“As crazy as it sounds, I was kind of focused on the stingrays ... and not getting stuck or stung,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap picked up the newborns and set them free into the water. He then went back to grab the mother — “she was tired,” Dunlap said — and walked her into the water, too.

“I’m happy they all survived,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap’s brother-in-law had been filming the entire ordeal on his phone, and he sent the video to Dunlap’s wife, Sarah, who posted it to Instagram.

But people who catch pregnant stingrays should think twice about doing the same thing, said Jen Krizan, a marine biologist at the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston.

“A lot of times when a pregnant stingray is stressed out, the pups will come out whether or not they are ready,” Krizan said.

And if the stingray pups have not fully developed, Krizan added, then they are less likely to survive when they start swimming in the ocean.

On top of that, newborn stingrays already have their stinger — that means they can hurt humans even if they are less than a minute old.

The best thing to do if you catch a pregnant stingray?

“Remove the hook and return the stingray to the ocean,” Krizan said.

Earlier this year, a fisherman on the Texas gulf caught a stingray that weighed 40 pounds.

This story was originally published July 26, 2018 at 3:59 PM.