Lionfish/DM's don't care!

[Prop Joe]

Sal, See Ya at La Condella for the beach pub crawl at 12:30. Gonna be a full van this time.

 

[nodakdive]

Have been coming to Cozumel for the last 10 years, one or two trips per year.

Just did 38 dives in the Marine Park the end of February. Was amazed at the decreased lionfish population. In all 40 dives on Cozumel, I don't think we saw 10 lionfish, and what we saw were small. Even the lionfish we saw deep weren't very big. Saw one last year at Maracaibo that looked about football size. Biggest this year wasn't half that size.

I'm also not a fan of feeding the dead lions to other marine life, though I heard reports from two different sources that some snappers and triggers are now bird dogging the lionfish.

Keep up the good work Pelagicsal and all the others out there slingin' away.

-Blair

 

[alohagal]

Yes...great to see the beautiful Pelagicsal in the photo!! What a great group.

 

[Pelagicsal]

Yes...great to see the beautiful Pelagicsal in the photo!! What a great group.

Awwww, thanks Mary!

Was a great group!!!! Tears this morning and missed the goodbye by minutes. :'(
Was about as much diving and partying as this girl could do!

 

[ggunn]

....having seen what I saw (or better yet, didn't see) on my last trip 02/06 (after the 2 Hurricanes hit in 2005) there's not a whole heck of a lot left to do 'damage-wise' to Coz anyway......so little left to look at there anymore, even the DM is probably bored out of his mind and, in a twisted sort of way, is thankful to have at least SOMETHING colorful to point out to divers.

That is sarcasm, right? It is certainly not accurate.

 

[mstevens]

That is sarcasm, right? It is certainly not accurate.

I don't even think it was accurate nearly 5 years ago when it was originally posted, which was over 3 years after the most recent dives the poster had made in Cozumel...

 

[divad]

ALSO: Lionfish on Punta Tunich twilight dive. I asked divemaster what he is going to do. He says, "I think they are a beautiful fish, I don't want to kill them. There are too many now to do anything about it."

Of course I tried to tell him what they are doing to the Bahamas etc. He just shrugged. I asked him if he was going to report it. He said "I actually was the one who found the first Lion fish here in Cozumel. It was a big deal then. Now it is too late. Octupus eat everything else here too"

This is the third Cozumel DM (two SCC, one BA) who shrug shoulders at sighting of LIONFISH.

What can I say!

We still haven't killed all the horses in America.

 

[Steve_C]

Killing a few lionfish and encouraging predation is fine. Barring a disease they are here to stay. There is a huge population already away from where folks dive. It is also true that if a species has a sanctuary they can recover more quickly so having a few areas where lionfish numbers are kept low will help stocks recover when the situation evolves to limit lionfish numbers. Bottom line: take some pictures, shoot some, whatever you want to do is fine with me.

By the way, they are sometimes surprisingly hard to photograph. I spent 10 minutes at 105 ft on the Rosin trying to get a nice headshot of a lionfish with a slightly upward angle. Problem was as I went lower, she/he/it rotated so that the top spines were always pointing at me. Finally I was undeneath and it was upside down. I said the heck with it and shot a side photo.

 

[DM Gary]

That is sarcasm, right? It is certainly not accurate.

My first trip to Coz was Dec '07 and the reefs were well on their way to recovery. I don't know what scubafanatic is talking about.

 

[Pelagicsal]

We still haven't killed all the horses in America.

You might want to check the date on that post. The thread was recently revived by the OP, but the horse was not...