I was not getting "preachy" I was making a general statement about how we as people generally react. I am not a "don't kill anything" greenie, however I do think its so easy to react to an issue with knee jerk predictability rather than to make the effort to truly understand the real issues "IN GENERAL". It was a GENERAL statement, and NOT a shot at people whose comment was to kill them off. Practically speaking I would suspect the pigeon has well and truly flown with your Lion Fish issue and to expect to be able to control them successfully by killing them ALL off is like expecting your borders to be totally safe with no illegal immigrants ever able to enter because you have thrown vast amounts of money and effort at it. I would think a KILL them all off approach might make you feel good but will never succeed in the long term. Maybe in the future a scientific approach might work to minimise their spread? Perhaps the introduction of their natural predators (although we tried that years ago and now have 2 pests in our country, we had the cane beetle which was introduced so we brought out the cane toad to eat the beetle but it liked so many other things in our environment that it didn't need to eat the beetle, hence still have beetles and now cane toads which kill native fauna as well)
You all would have read about the killing off of sharks in WA Australia because a few people have been killed. Without going into the pros and cons of it, its typical bureaucratic interference with no thought to longer term issues. The sharks near the coast are not the root cause of the issue, but perhaps human raping of the oceans of their normal prey is (hence my original comment)?
I have no knowledge of your exact situation and don't profess to. Perhaps it was more a question than statement but was certainly not aimed at anyone here. In hindsight perhaps I could have worded it better so it was less antagonistic to those who reacted. If so my apologies.
We have similar issues with introduced "Northern pacific Sea Stars" which come from japan area. They were brought here in ships ballast tanks and now are in plague proportions. Any attempts we have to control these pests are at best just a short term stop gap approach, so I do understand from that point, the issues of introduced pests. That one sea star can have 2 million young clearly shows we as humans at this stage anyway have no hope in hell of ridding us of this introduced pest. They too eat everything on the sea floor and are very very destructive to the natural environment as well as the local shell fish industry.
If that is your situation with the lionfish then I sympathise with you. In our part of the world, Lion fish are just part of the reef, no more or less than any other fish. I have personally helped to try and rid one of our National Park rivers of the sea star, only to find next year they are back once again. They are now thinking of brining the river to kill everything with the hope of removing them, but my feeling is we will kill many other species all to no avail in the longer term.
One of the real issues here with these introduced species is that its so easy to ship a species into a new environment and create chaos, thus we need to sort the root cause more so than making a big deal about something we have no hope in hell of stopping once its been introduced. I would think there are many species that would flourish given the opportunity to move their home, we need to control the movement first, rather than fight the effects afterwards. If you have been to Australia you would know our strict control of food to prevent pests getting into our country as we are an Island and thus somewhat isolated from many of the diseases other countries and areas have, and we wish to keep it that way. Perhaps I could offer up that we kill all tourists on sight, just to make sure they don't bring anything into the country, might affect the tourist industry a little though (JUST JOKING BEFORE YOU RIP MY HEAD OFF).
Oh and by the way, I AM NOT your dude or anyone else's.
---------- Post added January 8th, 2014 at 12:53 AM ----------
Oh and just another offering, Crown of Thorns Star fish, another species killing off the great barrier reef in the early 70s. In the 70s, we attacked them with vigour poisoning them and hunting them in an attempt to control them. Now we know that it was (yes you guessed it) man who caused their population explosion with fertiliser runoff etc (correct me if I am wrong here). Control the root cause and you control the issue (hopefully). Now their population is somewhat more under control as we are more environmentally understanding of some of the longer term issues. And YES I do kill them when I see them, and YES its probably a feel good thing and does nothing for their overall population size.
---------- Post added January 8th, 2014 at 12:57 AM ----------
And yes, after rereading all the posts again, I misread GLOCKSCUBAG!RL's original post to mean she wanted to see Lion Fish, not hunt them (because of their plague proportions). As I said, here they are just part of the reef, nothing more or less.
A few issues you are not considering.
While none of us here have any disagreement with you on the normal state of affairs where people should not attempt to eliminate a species, due to dislike for it--and with the imbalance potential or trophic collapse consequences this can sometimes cause......We do NOT believe the Lionfish issue falls into this category....
We have this problem due to 2 major problems mankind has caused:
- the introduction, by man, of the lion fish to Florida and Caribbean waters--where it had no natural predators, and was free to decimate the existing ecosystem--to destroy all balance previously established
- Due to massive OVERFISHING by man, primarily commercial overfishing, with absolute stupidity and greed removing over 90% of some shark species, and having massively depleted the predator base that COULD HAVE been in place naturally, to remove an invasive species, NATURALLY.....we do not have an ocean today in the Florida or Bahamas area, that can "naturally" rid itself of this imbalance--because we have taken it so far out of balance.
If we were to "sit back and wait for Nature to fix the Lionfish issue", as you appear to be suggesting..... the effect would be that this area, almost devoid of the natural predators that would have removed the lion fish threat 1000 years ago.... would be/is, so incapable of slowing the population growth of the lion fish, that the lion fish would eat a huge percentage of grazing herbivore species, as well as juvenile predator species....the net effect is the death of the reefs, and then the death of most fisheries.
100 or even 500 years ago, the sharks were the "Sheriffs of the Reef"....if any species overpopulated, the sharks would eat the excess --the easy meals that were swimming all around them. They would be assisted by huge populations of other big predators, even fish like the Goliaths and various snapper species. However, today what was once a huge, seemingly invincible army of marine predators, is an empty shell of what it once was, and this natural balance potential is no longer functional....
If we do not act, to remove lion fish, this WILL cause the loss of many prey species that the Lionfish have targeted. And this will further destroy the balance of the ecosystem.
As to what humans can do to eliminate a species like the lion fish....you fail to see the history we have at REMOVING a species that tastes good in restaurants. The Chinese have practically wiped out many Shark species........ and left to their own accords,
would kill every last shark in the ocean for shark fin soup. They can't help themselves, apparently.
In America, species like the
Hogsnapper, which were discovered by sea food restaurants in the 80's, were practically wiped out in the 90's by commercial spearfishing....the fillets selling for huge money to any spear fisherman that wanted a quick buck.
This IS in fact, a great example of targeted diver intervention, where without some protections added in the lat few years--the diving population WOULD have caused the extinction of the hog snappers in any meaningful way, throughout the reefs of the Caribbean and Florida.
Jewfish, were similarly wiped out in the 80's and nineties, primarily by divers, though aided by fisherman....diving legend and diving pioneer Frank Hammond, who was first to find all of the diving reefs of Palm Beach Florida in the 50's...augmented his dive operation business from the 60's to the late 80's, by shooting 1 to 3 Jewfish EVERY DAY , to sell these 300- to 700 pound fish for about 30 cents a pound. Frank actually did have a real hand in almost causing the extinction of the Jewfish in our waters. In fairness to Frank...our school systems were TEACHING KIDS that the "OCEans were an inexhaustible source of food" through the 70's, and fisherman and spear fisherman alike--in Frank's day, assumed that this bonanza they were reaping, would be there forever.
Lionfish, with a $25 per entree price on it at seafood restaurants --could easily be depleted to near zero on all Florida and Caribbean reefs in less than 160 feet deep ( area where large numbers of spear fisherman play).
When the depletion became extreme, the price would rocket in restaurants, and at $40 or more per pound, tech diving spear fisherman would deplete the 220 foot and 270 foot deep reef lines and wrecks. The lion fish would pay for their Trimix, and this would be hot sh*t!!
We would then be left with deep recharge zones on the deep reefs......where the lion fish would be left unchecked, and where they could reek havoc on the Oculina reef ecosystems and other deep coral marine nurseries.
While I Have no good solution in mind for this, knowing the commercial fishing industry, if the Lionfish would generate 40 dollars per pound or so, they would find a way to yank up every lion fish available at ANY DEPTH!!!
We have the history of the last hundred years to prove this behavior to be the Reality.
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