{"id":76275,"date":"2026-02-08T09:30:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T00:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/08\/wild-stingrays-new-zealand-north-island-gisborne"},"modified":"2026-02-08T09:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T00:30:16","slug":"sea-puppy-pancakes-what-its-like-to-pat-a-300kg-wild-stingray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76275","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sea puppy pancakes\u2019: what it\u2019s like to pat a 300kg wild stingray"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Visitors to a site near Gisborne in New Zealand\u2019s North Island get to interact with the animals in their habitat and learn about their importance to M\u0101ori culture<\/p>\n<p>In a shallow reef close to New Zealand\u2019s east coast shore, a group of 30 people wearing khaki overalls and boots huddle together like a crescent moon, waiting for the stars of the show to arrive.<\/p>\n<p>They don\u2019t have to wait long.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/08\/wild-stingrays-new-zealand-north-island-gisborne\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Visitors to a site near Gisborne in New Zealand\u2019s North Island get to interact with the animals in their habitat and learn about their importance to M\u0101ori cultureIn a shallow reef close to New Zealand\u2019s east coast shore, a group of 30 people wearing kh&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5170,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265,41,468,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-asia-pacific","category-marine-life","category-new-zealand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76276,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76275\/revisions\/76276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}