Ep 44: What happened to Charlotte the Stingray?

Charlotte the stingray took the internet by storm, seemingly pregnant despite not having a mate. The theories behind her miracle pregnancy, the uncovered truth, and the following backlash provide an important lesson in marine animal care and anthropomorphism.

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Stacia (00:01.134)
Hello everyone, welcome back to Humane Nature. I'm your host Stacia and yay! As you can hear it, I actually fixed my audio problem. It took a lot of fidgeting with my mic and the online platform that I use, but it is fixed. I don't sound like your speakers are being blown out and thank you for being patient with me. I just had to get that episode out after recording it like four times, so...

I thought it was kind of good enough, which I probably shouldn't be doing. But I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I'm trying to steer away from that as per my therapist. anyway. Today we are going to be talking about Charlotte the Stingray. If you have not been on social media much, especially TikTok, Charlotte the Stingray has really taken the internet by storm and

It's a very strange story. So Charlotte the Stingray is, as you guessed it, a stingray. And she, again, blew up on the internet when it was announced that she was pregnant. And although a pregnant stingray shouldn't seem like that big of a deal, this was because there were no other stingrays in her tank. She had been the only stingray in her tank for years at that point. So.

Let's jump back and talk about Charlotte herself because I want to put emphasis on who she is, even though she, people say, she's just a stingray. That's not what this podcast is about. So as you all know,

Charlotte is a round stingray located at the Team Echo, that's ECCO, aquarium and research center that is located in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Charlotte was formally rescued from a private residence, so somebody used to have her as a pet. So it is unknown what her real age is or how well she was cared for prior to transferring to the aquarium. And I could find very little on...

Stacia (02:16.846)
how she was transferred, why she was rescued from a bad situation, if she was relinquished, if her owner died and she was donated to the aquarium. I have no idea. I could not find that information anywhere. So if you know more about that, I would love to read it and do an updated episode. But all of the research that I have done, all the news about Charlotte was about this mysterious pregnancy.

and the aftermath of that rather than about Charlotte herself. So.

It is estimated that Charlotte is between the ages of 12 and 16 years, putting her very well into her senior years. So she is in her golden years. She is an old girl. She is living like we love that for her. Charlotte has not had a stingray mate for eight years. So her last one passed away about eight years ago and they just haven't had any other stingrays in her tank with her. She's not by herself.

She's not solitary in this tank like the orca, like lolita, the orca down in Miami. We did an episode on that a little while ago, but she is not solitary. There are many other species of sharks, other fish, and lots of other aquatic animals in there with her, but she has not had a stingray mate for a very long time.

In a public Facebook live event in February of this year, Charlotte had an ultrasound that pointed to signs of pregnancy commonly seen in round stingrays. So they did an ultrasound on her after they noticed some physical signs of pregnancy and round stingrays carry their eggs kind of like under the skin in their backs, like in their abdomen back area. And actually let me double check, make sure that's true.

Stacia (04:30.798)
So yes, round stingrays develop a noticeable baby bump, which is visible on their bellies, on their underside, and on their backs. And this is what Team Echo saw. So they saw this pregnancy bump that stingrays have, and they did an ultrasound and saw eggs and were super excited to announce that Charlotte was indeed

And there are two main theories behind Charlotte's mysterious pregnancy. The first is parthenogenesis. So parthenogenesis is nicknamed virgin births or virgin pregnancy because it is a phenomenon in nature when an alien or alien, when an animal or insect reproduces asexually without a mate. So this.

does happen in nature. It is not like an unknown thing. It has not been recorded to happen in round stingrays, which is why people were so excited about Charlotte's pregnancy. But these offspring are generally like essentially clones of the mother. So there is no off there's no DNA from a mate from a sexual reproduction. So basically the mother replicates

her own DNA in their offspring, and they're basically just a bunch of clones, unless one of them has some kind of genetic mutation. And most animal species do not want to do this. I say want as if like they're aware that they're doing it, but biologically, they are more like prone to have sexual reproduction because...

Clones, like genetic clones, are much more susceptible to disease. So if there's something that, like a disease comes by and affects the mother and kills the mother, all of the offspring are clones of that mother and they will most likely be susceptible, like catch that as well. They are susceptible to it. So if an animal species only reproduces asexually in this way and produces clones, they can very easily be just wiped out.

Stacia (06:58.51)
So because of that, it is rare in nature, but it is seen examples of animals that have been able to have pathogenic births include honeybees, rattlesnakes, and some shark species among many, many more. For example, a zebra shark in Australia's Reef HQ aquarium shocked the world when she had a pathogenic birth a few years ago. And the reason I bring up the zebra shark is because sharks and rays are very closely related.

and parthenogenetic pregnancies seem to be most common in reptiles and fish species. I do not think it has occurred in mammal species, although I could be wrong on that. And it definitely has not occurred with people. And I really don't think it's occurred in other primate species, but I could be wrong. But I do believe it is mostly reptiles and fish and insects.

Some people confuse partho - parthenogenic pregnancies, that's a really hard word to say, with sequential hermaf - okay, let's see. Hermaphroditism. Sequential hermaphroditism, which is when animals switch sexes in nature in order to breed. This is seen in frogs, probably the most often, where if there is a population of only female frogs, some of them may switch -

are able to switch their sexes so that they are male in order to reproduce. And this is kind of how they explain the dinosaurs being able to breed in Jurassic Park because they took DNA from frogs and other animals, put them into dinosaur DNA. And because they were all females in the park, some of them were able to switch their sexes to be male, which they were able to breed. And I think that's really, really cool. This, the,

The whole dinosaur thing wouldn't work. You can't, like, at least right now, splice DNA with a frog and then have an animal turn different sexes. But the idea of it is very, very cool, and it is rooted in some fact there.

Stacia (09:09.902)
And animal sex does not change in parthenogenesis. Instead, their own DNA is cloned to create offspring without the help of a mate. So Charlotte would have been the first ever recorded round stingray with a parthenogenic pregnancy, which is a really big deal. The second theory behind her mysterious pregnancy is that Charlotte somehow bred with one of the sharks in her tank.

This theory is not as crazy as it sounds in theory. Raisin sharks are very closely related, genetically, and similarly related species have been able to breed with like other animals in the past, such as horses and donkeys to create mules. Horses and donkeys are closely related, but they are different animals, and when they breed, they create mules. You also get like lions and tigers to make ligers, things like that. So,

This is also something that happens usually with some human intervention, but that was a theory that people floated around. However, despite its popularity online, I saw so many people on TikTok, and that tells you what side of TikTok I'm on, super excited to potentially see a shark -ray hybrid baby. And it would have been the first of its kind. It would have been super, super cool. I'll give them that.

but this theory was very quickly debunked. It was determined that Charlotte's and the shark's DNA in her tank were not related closely enough in order to create offspring. And in addition to that, Charlotte would not have been able to physically mate with any of the sharks in her exhibit based on their size differences and anatomical differences and sex organs that would prevent breeding successfully.

So Charlotte is very small, round stingrays are very small. The sharks were bigger than her. They weren't like massive. They're not like great whites or anything. They're the typical like smaller shark species that you see in most aquariums that are like housed with other fish and rays and stuff. But they are big enough and like their size difference is enough that their genitals basically wouldn't be able to line up properly in order to mate.

Stacia (11:30.83)
And the reason that this was so widely believed is that Charlotte did have some like marks on her back that kind of indicate that she was maybe bitten by a shark or they were like holding on, which is something that they do when they breed. This was not, it was not proven that these marks were made by sharks or if they were previous scars from something else or if she like scratched her back on a rock or coral or something like.

It was, it was a pretty, people were reaching pretty, pretty great with this theory, but it was very quickly debunked, even though it would have been super, super cool. So, was Charlotte actually pregnant? This, if you have heard about Charlotte, you know the answer to this. And this is what the big aftermath has been. So after months of silence,

from the aquarium, they were talking quite a bit about Charlotte giving like daily updates, all that stuff. So after months of silence, it was announced just this month in June of 2024 that Charlotte was not actually pregnant and she never was. She actually had a reproductive disease. So the disease caused an enlarged uterus,

cystic ovaries and unovulated eggs that she was carrying. So this is why they saw these signs of pregnancy. Her enlarged uterus caused the lump in her belly and back that indicate pregnancy and raise. And when they did an ultrasound, they did see eggs. So they assumed that she was pregnant. This caused a massive uproar with the public, especially on TikTok again. And...

other social media sites claiming that the aquarium was using the attention they obtained from Charlotte's quote -unquote pregnancy for money and increased guest numbers. Although the owner and director of the aquarium has come out and said that she never lied, that they genuinely did think that Charlotte was pregnant. They were super excited because it was such a rare thing and they thought that maybe they had the first parthenogenic.

Stacia (13:50.862)
pregnancy and array ever recorded and everybody was just super excited. But many people compared Charlotte's experience with many human women's experiences in the United States where our reproductive health symptoms are very often ignored. And while I do not think that's the case in this situation, and I will get into that in a minute, I feel for that.

women we are often overlooked even when we are having pain or symptoms of something and Doctors will just brush it off and not even test us for anything But that's not exactly what happened in this situation So in my personal opinion, so from here on out this is my personal opinion as someone who has worked in veterinary medicine quite a bit who has

done a lot of research on this topic, who has, I mean, I've done some deep dives into this and, you know, all my experience with being in this kind of situation, I've worked in, I've worked and volunteered in aquariums, aquatic and bird rescue facilities, zoos, animal hospitals, like, I've kind of been around. So it,

This is all from my background, my personal opinion. So I do not think that this misdirection from the aquarium was intentional. Stingrays are made entirely out of cartilage, just like sharks are, other than their teeth. So ultrasounds can be very tricky, especially if you are not well experienced or trained. And I could say as someone who's done ultrasounds on animals before,

even on like dogs and cats when you are well trained, can be very tricky to see things clearly on these ultrasounds. And that is when there are bones and distinctive organs and like the differences in the skin and like everything. And the fact that stingrays are entirely cartilage and...

Stacia (16:10.542)
The aquarium staff was likely not very well trained. And I will get into that a little bit more in a bit. It has been reported. I have seen that the aquarium staff was not trained as well as, let's say, like a veterinary staff would normally be. And the Echo or Team Echo aquarium is not an AZAA accredited aquarium. This does not necessarily mean that they're a bad aquarium.

but it does mean that they may not have the resources or the veterinary team that an AZA accredited aquarium would have in order to do better testing for Charlotte. So signs of reproductive disease in stingrays look very similar to pregnancy in stingrays. They have the, like I said, the lump on their belly and their abdomen where in ultrasound they can clearly see the eggs.

and it is very difficult to see the ovaries of a, of a stingray. So they wouldn't have been necessarily able to see the cystic ovaries, especially if they weren't very well trained. And you can't really see, like, I don't know how well you can see if ray eggs are ovulated or unovulated, like, if they have babies inside of them. But the uterus being...

larger than it would normally be doesn't really equate in this because it was full of unfertilized eggs. So it was going to be enlarged, whether she was pregnant or not. So it is in my opinion that the aquarium staff saw the symptoms and were immediately like super excited at the prospect of Charlotte's special pregnancy. I mean, I would have been for sure.

Reproductive disorders in rays are not very well studied or documented, so it is likely the aquarium staff really just simply did not have the knowledge to look for them in Charlotte. Even though Charlotte is an elderly stingray and didn't have a male stingray in there with her, this is not studied very often or very thoroughly. So yeah, they probably just didn't know what to look for in terms of something going on with Charlotte rather than a pregnancy.

Stacia (18:33.998)
I very well could be wrong. People have done horrific things with animals for clout online. I tend to see the good side of people until I'm proven otherwise. So if something comes out that negates all of this, I will make an updated episode. But for now, that is how I am feeling. And I feel really hard for these people. They are getting a lot of backlash, a lot of hate from people. And I don't think they did it on purpose.

Though I don't think that the pregnancy announcement was an intentional lie, I do think Team Echo made some major mistakes in Charlotte's following care. So this is where I think that they really messed up. Due to her advanced age, Charlotte should have been monitored more closely than what I've seen reported. They may have been monitoring her and I just haven't seen reports of it. Like they haven't put out full reports online or anything. They have been...

They have been keeping pretty quiet since all of this came out. Extra testing and an expert opinion on rays, like from an aquatic veterinarian, should have been received due to the extreme rarity of parthenogenesis, especially reported in stingrays. Again, this would have been the first ever round ray parthenogenic pregnancy. So before announcing the pregnancy, they should have reached out to someone,

who had more expertise in the area.

When the average gestation period of round stingrays came and went, it should have raised red flags to the aquarium staff. And I have seen them make statements on this that the average gestation period is just that it's an average. So it's not like humans where it's like the eight month mark, nine month mark, nine month mark. And you're very close to that mark. You're going to have a baby in rays and other species of fish.

Stacia (20:38.254)
It varies pretty widely between individuals, even within the same species.

It is very possible that the staff were so excited for the scientific discovery in their own research center, because again, they are a shark and ray research center, that it blinded them to the possibility that Charlotte was actually sick. We, even with our own pets, don't want to jump to the worst possible conclusion often, especially with our older pets. A lot of people with senior dogs will wait to go to the vet.

because they equate certain symptoms with old age. And that's similar to what happened here, in my personal opinion. Charlotte may not have been showing obvious signs of illness in addition to the pregnancy symptoms, such as a lack of appetite or lethargy. So she may have well been behaving totally normally outside of these signs of pregnancy, which may not have raised any red flags for them. Obviously if she,

Well, I guess not obviously, because I wasn't there, but I feel like if she stopped eating or she was super lethargic or looked very sick, then they would have jumped in on that a little quicker. I don't blame the aquarium for their quick announcement to their excitement. However, I do think they dropped the ball on Charlotte's care during her assumed pregnancy and keeping the public in the dark for so long.

because keeping the public who are invested in this kind of stuff in the dark leads them to grow very suspicious and angry about all of that. So again, Team Echo is not an AZA -accredited aquarium, though they do a lot of good in scientific research in their area. They probably just don't have the facilities that are required to become an AZA -accredited aquarium.

Stacia (22:41.55)
They likely did not have the training or resources that AZA aquariums are known for, which could be a huge roadblock in things as uncommon as ray reproductive disorders.

So I think the public reaction of Charlotte's not pregnancy has been blown way out of proportion.

Yes, she should have received medical care earlier than she did. However, from a medical standpoint, kind of taking myself out of it and speaking it from just my experience as a veterinary technician, I understand why she didn't receive it if she did not have any other clinical signs. So they likely didn't want to stress her out. They likely didn't want to handle her too much because of her like,

older age and the fact that she was pregnant, I think they were trying to be extremely careful with her and that ended up being a bit of a mistake.

Stacia (23:45.934)
So.

Stacia (23:49.902)
Team Echo currently is closed indefinitely in order to, quote, ensure the safety and medical care of Charlotte and all our animals at Team Echo Aquarium. And that came from their website. It is likely they are closed due to the backlash and trying to keep their staff and animals safe, which is very respectable. I'm sure there are a lot of kind of, I don't want to say crazy people, but a lot of people who are very wrapped up in this, who are showing up at the aquarium.

or picketing or doing all these things that aren't really gonna change anything. What's done is done. And it sounds like they are giving Charlotte the necessary care that she needs now. Hopefully Charlotte will make a full recovery. However, it is very important to remember that Charlotte is at the end of her natural lifespan. So it is very likely that she won't fully recover from this. And I don't think that she developed this as...

this disorder because of anything the aquarium did wrong. I think it was just a result of her being so old. Remember, she is placed somewhere between 12 and 16 years of age, and the average lifespan of a round stingray is about 14 years. So she is at or over the average lifespan of a round stingray.

If she passed away from this, it wouldn't necessarily be the aquarium's fault, even if the disease was caught right away and they hadn't prolonged treatment because they thought that she was pregnant.

So in conclusion, I really don't think the aquarium's actions were intentionally malicious. I do understand that Charlotte being misdiagnosed with a reproductive disorder hit a chord for a lot of women, myself included. I was very upset when I heard about this, but I had to kind of take my personal experiences out, which is something that we have to do a lot in animal research and veterinary medicine and animal behavioral studies is we tend to personify

Stacia (25:56.27)
animals and put our own human reactions, our own human emotions and experiences in their shoes when they don't react or feel or experience things the same way that we do.

Reproductive disorders are much harder to diagnose and raise compared to humans and are far, far less common. Probably because most stingrays don't live to their full lifespan and it may be an older age thing. So it's like we've seen an increase in Alzheimer's in people, like per capita. But that is because we are living longer. That doesn't mean that really anything else is changing. That means we're living longer ergo.

It is a disease that is associated with older age in general. I think I could be wrong on this, but I do believe that the reproductive disorders in Rays is kind of the same way. So we may start seeing more of it because we are learning how to care better for stingrays in captivity.

Many experiences that women face are doctors writing them off and refusing testing that would point to a medical condition. And I know a lot of people personally who have had like horrible cramps or horrible periods, symptoms, or abdominal pain or whatever. And it was all written off by cramps or a PMS when in reality they had like endometriosis or cystic ovaries or any of that awful, awful stuff.

And the big difference here is that Charlotte was examined. They just didn't realize that that's what they were looking at. And it was a mistake on their part, but it is not something that is immediately obvious to even to Ray experts. Whereas in people, they just kind of write us off and don't test at all. So there is...

Stacia (27:59.534)
some key differences there, but I do understand having that visceral sad and angry reaction, especially if you have gone through this yourself. So please, please, please do not send any hate to Team Echo. I don't think they did this on purpose and I think they've received enough backlash at this point or any content creators who are discussing this online. People are feeling their feelings and it's not gonna change anything.

Unless they're like physically attacking the aquarium or their employees, just let them vent, let them get their feelings out. This drama will pass. It always does. You don't hear people talking about Lolita the orca really anymore. And that was much, much bigger than this is. So yes, please let this pass. Don't send any hate to anybody. This podcast was, you know, educational.

purposes only, not to... don't be that asshole. So I wanted to end this with some round stingray fun facts, just to make this a little lighter because we may be saying goodbye to Charlotte relatively soon, and I think this is... it's gonna blow up again on the internet and people are gonna blame the aquarium when it's not necessarily their fault.

Round stingrays get their name from their nearly perfectly round bodies. They are super, super cute. And I will have photos of them and Charlotte on my Instagram and my website for you. They are a very common ray seen along West Coast coastlines. So think California, West Coast of Mexico. And they have a conservation status of least concern. So you don't really have to worry about these little guys too much.

Round rays prefer sandy or muddy areas and are often found in rocky reef areas, usually in shallow water less than 50 feet or 15 meters deep. So they are found like where we would be swimming on the beaches, like very closely to that. They're the ones that come up in super shallow waters that you may see swimming around in California.

Stacia (30:15.822)
Like other rays, round stingrays have a venomous bar up on the end of their tail. Round rays are very small, averaging a diameter of 10 inches or 25 .4 centimeters across and or less and weigh less than three pounds or 1 .4 kilograms. So these babes are very small, especially compared to other stingrays. Round stingrays again live about 14 years on average, putting Charlotte,

very very old. While round rays are not considered aggressive they have stung beachgoers due to their preference for shallow water which puts them in closer contact more frequently with people than most other stingray species. So a tip to avoid stingray stings because a round stingray sting is not going to kill you. I know

Stacia (31:15.758)
I know a lot of you are probably thinking about Steve Irwin right now. One, he was not stung by a round stingray. It was a much larger ray. And two, he had, it was extremely unlucky and rare event where he was struck directly into his chest. So that even if a sting, a round stingray were to like poke you in the chest, I don't think that they have the strength to puncture.

But most ray stings are like on the feet or legs, like as you're walking through the water. So to avoid stingray stings along the coast, it is recommended to do the, what we call like the stingray shuffle in sandy areas. I did this all the time in Florida because I was so scared of stepping on a crab or a stingray and getting hurt. So instead of like lifting up your foot and stepping down and walking that way,

It's best to kind of bury your feet a little bit in the sand and shuffle your feet rather than picking them up all the way. Almost like you're rubbing your hands together. It's that kind of similar motion. So the reason that this helps is that rays and crabs and other animals that like to bury themselves in the sand or sit right on top of the sand will feel the vibrations of your feet shuffling through the sand. And this will likely cause them to swim away because...

most animals will choose to flee and escape rather than face whatever it is, especially if it's a large thing head on. It's the best way to survive. So this will also prevent you from stepping directly on them and pinning them down. I mean, if you were a small animal and this giant foot came down and stepped on you and pinned you down to the ground,

you would probably reach up and try to hurt that foot too. So I don't really blame stingrays and crabs and other burrowed animals reaching up and trying to attack the foot that has stepped on them. So do yourself a favor, do the stingray shuffle or, you know, float on like a boogie board, surfboard, whatever.

Stacia (33:31.694)
So that is all I have for you today. Thank you so much for listening, guys. I will keep you updated on Team Charlotte on Charlotte the Stingray and Team Echo Aquarium as more news comes out. And hopefully Charlotte will make a recovery. This stuff blows away in that everything will be okay. But you never know. Go ahead and give me a follow on Instagram if you haven't.

My Instagram is StumbleSafari. That is Stumble as in fall, Safaris in an African safari. That is also the name of my website. So stumblesafari .com. You can find pictures and...

pictures and a transcript for this episode on my website if you'd like. And then also there are other travel related articles that you can peruse. Some of them are animal tourism related, some of them are not. And yeah, thank you so much for listening and I will hear you next time.