Charlotte the stingray turned a social media star when she bought pregnant with no mate.

Lydia Wilson

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Lydia Wilson

The world is ready for information on how a stingray mysteriously got pregnant without a mate at a small aquarium within the Appalachian mountains of Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Visitors like Sylvia Jones, of Staunton, Virginia, and her niece Lilliana, of Ellenboro, North Carolina, have been flooding Main Street companies on the weekends because the being pregnant announcement.

“We’re here to see Charlotte the stingray for my niece’s birthday,” mentioned Jones. “We saw her on TikTok… We were just talking about how it’s any day now that she might give birth, so we’re hoping we might be lucky to see something happen.”

Jones drove nearly 5 hours from Staunton, Virginia to see household. They turned the Charlotte tour right into a daytrip, an instance that “the Charlotte Effect” is actual for space companies.

Weekend guests hoping to see Charlotte at Team Ecco Aquarium and Shark Lab

Lydia Wilson

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Lydia Wilson

Weekend guests hoping to see Charlotte at Team Ecco Aquarium and Shark Lab

Lydia Wilson

“We’re gonna check out the Gem and Mineral museum,” mentioned Jones. “And we went to HenDough: Chicken and Donuts. I got the Southern Fried Chicken sandwich with brussel sprouts and the Nutella Peanut Butter donut.”

A few doorways down on the Mast General Store, supervisor Travis Spencer has been getting extra prospects, too.

“Absolutely,” he mentioned, “there’s been a great uptick in foot traffic. The weekends have been a lot busier for us. No complaints because this time of year can be kind of slow. So it’s been nice to have the Charlotte craziness going on to help to drive business.”

The native espresso store has seen guests from as distant as Washington State and even Germany. created a latte named for Charlotte

Mark and Kristen Pavao, the homeowners of Black Bear Coffee Company created a latte named for Charlotte

“So we came up with the stingray shuffle. We did some flavors of dulce de leche and coconut,” Pavao mentioned.

Part of the proceeds return to the aquarium to honor the work of the Team Ecco Aquarium and Shark Lab founder, former trainer, Brand Ramer.

“Brenda does great stuff locally with the kids,” mentioned Pavao. “She trains them to scuba dive and be interested in marine biology. So it’s amazing things that she does, and any way that we can return that to her, it’s our pleasure.”

Mainstreet Hendersonville is seeing extra guests due to Charlotte the pregnatn Stingray.

Lydia Wilson

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Lydia Wilson

Mainstreet Hendersonville is seeing extra guests due to Charlotte the pregnatn Stingray.

Lydia Wilson

Hendersonville is a small mountain metropolis of 15,000 the place tourism is without doubt one of the main drivers. But not in winter. Each October, in a single day tourism peaks together with fall leaf colour – native motels and inns promote out with visitors there to see the colourful yellows and reds.

Michelle Owens is the manager director of the Tourism Development Authortiy for the county. She says the February eighth gradual season announcement of Charlotte’s thriller being pregnant was wonderful timing. as February is historically the second slowest month of the 12 months.

“In the tourism world, it’s an anomaly,” mentioned Owens. “It’s not just a biological anomaly. So, we wanted to see, what did it mean? Was it just a social media phenomenon, or did it translate into visitorship?”

Owens mentioned it’ll take a number of extra months to get arduous knowledge about the place guests got here from and the way lengthy they stayed. But the tourism web site has already had 40% extra distinctive month-to-month guests in February.

Shops in downtown Hendersonville proceed to have enjoyable with Charlotte the pregnant stingray, and gladly welcome her pups to the downtown household.