No it isn’t happening here and it must not ever happen. This is why we have highlighted it as our lead story today.

Our Stingray City is one of our top tourist attractions and stingrays are easy to catch, as they are very trusting regarding humans. You can feed them by hand.

Stingray City is the world’s greatest 12ft dive.

This article was sent to us by our friends at Care2 and it sickened me just reading it. Yes, even though  the stingrays they are using are genetically engineered, it makes it no less easy on my stomach.

Here is the article written by Ali Berman. She is a writer, teacher and activist. She works as a humane educator for HEART teaching kids about issues affecting people, animals and the environment. Ali is also a fiction writer. Her published work can be found on her website at aliberman.com.

This article is NOT ficticious.

New Company Rayfish Farms Stingrays to Skin for Shoes

The innovative ways people come up with to exploit animals in the effort to make some cash never ceases to amaze us. This time, a new company called Rayfish is raising genetically engineered stingrays to make expensive shoes.

How are they genetically engineering them? Rayfish explains on their website, “Rayfish Footwear uses a patented process of bio-customization, which allows you to design your own living, transgenic stingray. Using the DNA on file in our genetic library, you can combine the skin patterns and coloration from dozens of different species.”

That means that by using the DNA from other species, they are able to change the look of the stingrays that are grown in their facility. Each stingray is slaughtered to make one shoe. Are you cringing? Us too.

The company does have a note about the stingrays being raised “humanely” although it doesn’t specify what that means. Perez Hilton points to a photo on Rayfish’s facebook page showing a picture of some “Zebra” stingrays.

They haven’t started mass production yet, but they expect to in late 2012. Sneakers will be priced at $1800 a pair. At least with high prices like those, the number of sneakers they sell will be lower. But then again, when you do the math, if they sell 100 pairs, that’s 200 stingrays sacrificed.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/stingrays-to-be-slaughtered-for-shoes.html#ixzz1yGh7R5tG

Have you signed the Care2 petition to convince the Cayman Island government to ban the use of Paraquat? Please do.