The procupine whipray is presumably largely taken as bycatch in unregulated fisheries in nearshore waters. It has been recorded as a high value catch in Indonesian net fisheries (White et al. 2006). It appears to have disappeared or become extremely rare (compared to certain other batoids) in the batoid catches landed in Bangkok from the Gulf of Thailand in recent decades (Compagno and Cook, unpubl. data). This suggests probable local over-exploitation here and possibly also in the Bay of Bengal. Similar trends are likely to be occurring or will occur in other areas where batoids are taken in multi-species fisheries. Certainly, demersal fishery resources in the Gulf of Thailand and Southeast Asia have been severely depleted from historical levels (Stobutzki et al. 2006). Human modification and degradation of the ray’s habitat is also possibly occurring in some of the more highly populated and polluted coastal areas as a result of human influences. The loss of coastal habitats such as mangroves may be of particular concern for this species which is suspected to have highly localized habitat use (A. Chin, unpubl. data).

This species was occasionally taken in northern Australian trawl fisheries (Brewer et al. 2006). However, the introduction of turtle exclusion devices appears to have successfully excluded this species from continuing capture in trawl nets (Brewer et al. 2006). The Porcupine Ray is considered to be potentially one of the most vulnerable chondrichthyans to the impacts of climate change in northern Australia (Chin et al. 2010).