 Common stingrays are caught incidentally by commercial fisheries across many parts of its range , using bottom trawls , gillnets , bottom longlines , beach seines , and trammel nets . Because of its inshore habitat preferences , this ray is more susceptible to small @-@ scale coastal fisheries than to industrial operations , such as in the Balearic Islands , where it makes up 40 % of the shark and ray trammel net catch . Surveys indicate that common stingrays have declined in the Mediterranean and the northeastern Atlantic , and may have been extirpated from the Bay of Biscay . As a result , the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) has assessed this species as Near Threatened in those two regions , while the species as a whole is listed under Data Deficient . The common stingray is protected within five marine protected areas ( MPAs ) in the Balearic Islands , and also benefits from a European Union ban on the use of trawls within 5 @.@ 6 km ( 3 @.@ 5 mi ) of the coast . 
