Ahead of plans for a major overhaul of the law to expand local marine parks, Mark Scotland, the Minister for the Environment, announced the Cayman Islands Government is proposing to make a minor amendment to the marine conservation law in order to make it illegal to take stingrays, manta rays and eagle rays from anywhere in Cayman.

In making this announcement, Scotland said he hoped to have this amendment passed by the Legislative Assembly at their next meeting.

“This will extend the protection of rays from the wildlife interaction zone at the Sandbar to all Cayman waters,” he said.

However, he said he was not sure what would happen to the rays currently being held but the law would make it illegal to hold them in captivity.

The minister was referring to the incident at Dolphin Discovery when the Department of Environment (DoE) was alerted that tagged stingrays were illegally being kept there. The DoE were able to return these tagged stingrays to Stingray City but Dolphin Discovery refused to return the untagged ones despite much protest by the DoE and the public at large.

Scotland made this announcement at Thursday’s (31) Government Press Briefing.