The Masked Stingaree forms a component of the biomass of bycatch in the scallop and prawn trawl fisheries that operate off Perth and Mandurah. A trawl survey of demersal fishes on the coastal shelf regions of southwestern Australia in the early 1990s reported that the species constituted 2.6% of the total biomass of fish caught (Laurenson et al. 1993, Hyndes et al. 1999). Only a small number of trawlers operate in these fisheries, and while some small-scale trawl operations exist in the northern part of the species range (i.e. Abrolhos Islands and Shark Bay) which may potentially take the species as bycatch, the overall trawl fishing pressure across the species’ range is low.
Where the species is taken as bycatch, a concern is the demonstrated low post-release survivorship of trawl caught stingarees (Campbell et al. 2018), and the fact that urolophids frequently abort pups upon capture and handling; even if gravid females survived capture, their reproductive output can be lost (White et al. 2001, Trinnie et al. 2009, Adams et al. 2018).
The species may also be subject to localised habitat loss and degradation due to increased levels of recreational water use and development in shallow embayments around southern Australia.