Just got back from a Cozumel divetrip last night. One of the divemasters on one of my dives with Sand Dollar Sports said that he saw a lionfish on one of his dives last week. Says that he reported the sighting to the appropriate authorities.
Lionfish in Cozumel
- Thread starter deborahdelamar
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NudeDiver
Contributor
I guess I am missing what the problem is. Species migrate (one way or the other) and settle into other ecosystems all the time. Hell, just look at man! This species started off in Africa and is now found all over the planet! The "native" species need to evolve - adapt, relocate or otherwise. Its nature's way.
Belmont
Contributor
Early man did not come here by plane.
The introduction of foreign species by man is a different thing compared to natural evolution.
NudeDiver
Contributor
Belmont
Contributor
-The mode of transport, yes. A foreign species can be introduced in the time it takes it to fly half way around the world. If it was left to nature it would take thousands of years to happen and meanwhile the new environment would have time to adapt and be less disturbed. In any event nature will be able to recover but in time and there could be some casualties along the way.
-Man has technology that he did not have before, he is less in tune with nature and is now more and more a disturbing factor. Nature will eventually take care of things, it has time on it's side.
-Man has technology that he did not have before, he is less in tune with nature and is now more and more a disturbing factor. Nature will eventually take care of things, it has time on it's side.
NudeDiver
Contributor
Man, and all of his activities, including his technology, are merely products of nature.
But it wasn't nature nor a product of natural activities that brought lionfish to this hemisphere. Man put them here and that act completely circumvented natural processes. Sure, maybe lionfish would have migrated here eventually. While they were doing so nature would have adapted over the many millennia it would have taken. This species was thrust into these waters practically overnight and now nature, and man, has to adapt in a very short time. There is great concern that while nature takes her good ol' time to straighten things out there's going to be a significant impact on the environment that will occur practically instantaneously in evolutionary time. There's every indication at this point that the adjustment period is going to be bad for both man and for the already established natural order. The lionfish, however, are lovin' it.
Harro10
Contributor
self deleted message
Do you know what water hyacinth is? It's a plant that evolved in the tropics to fill a niche. Access to light is a big deal with tropical plants and the competition is fierce, so the water hyacinth evolved pontoons so that it could float out onto bodies of water. Hence, it could get to the light where most other plants could not grow, and where other plants could grow by extending stalks to the bottom, the floating nature of the water hyacinth enabled it to swarm over them.
Travelers to the tropics saw this weird looking plant with its pretty blue flowers and brought specimens back to the US to plant in their backyard ponds, and it escaped. Unfortunately, the combination of the water hyacinth's extremely aggressive nature, voracious appetite for nutrients, incredibly fast growing and reproduction cycles, and lack of predators and competition led to this plant basically carpeting the wetlands of the southeastern US in just a few years. It is a nuisance; it has clogged waterways and it has driven other species to the brink of extinction.
There are plenty of other examples of man's disruption: rabbits in Australia, feral goats and pigs on the islands of the Pacific, etc. The balance of native flora and fauna of a particular location are the result of thousands or millions of years of wrangling for niches by the local species, and it's a delicate thing.
I get the philosophical point you are trying to make. Man is, after all, just another species, and his effect on the world is, in some senses, a natural thing. In practicality, however, since we are the only species that both is sentient and travels huge distances with luggage, we should respect the "treaties" that other species have hammered out amongst themselves in particular locales and not disrupt them.
budaman
Contributor
Kind of like the Duckweed we know have in Lake Austin. originally brought into the US as an aquarium/pond plant that chokes out the lake so much now, the lake has to be drained each winter so it will freeze & stunt the growth. Unfortunately, it is here for good now.
One thing I was wondering about, is the effect currents might have on the lionfish securing a widespread presence in Cozumel. When we were in French Polynesia, we didn't seem to encounter any when there was a steady current.....only in pretty calm areas.
Mike
One thing I was wondering about, is the effect currents might have on the lionfish securing a widespread presence in Cozumel. When we were in French Polynesia, we didn't seem to encounter any when there was a steady current.....only in pretty calm areas.
Mike
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