Am I not seeing things?

[ronski101]

Just got back from our annual Bonaire trip and mabe it is just me but it seemed that overall there were fewer fish than in past trips. To be more specific, there seemed to be the usual amount of fish at the southern sites while Kline and the northern sites just did not seem to have the normal population that we are used to seeing. The water was a bit cooler but the vis was great. Yeah there were some lion fish but they were there last year too. The reefs looked about as healthy as in the past. Maybe the predator, vs herbivore ratio is out of wack as we did see quite a few of the hunter types vs the grazers. Lots of eels too.

 

[curious2dive]

Hi Ronski101,

This is probably caused by the Lionfish. This animal invated our waters like the movie Invasion of the bodusnatchers. The difference is the movie was SF and this is reality.
Same problem we see on Curacao.

And the Lionfish are exploding in amounts.

 

[robint]

We saw good fishlife when we were there at the beginning of this month... however... we did feel that specific fish were missing or in much lower numbers than our previous trip in 2007. Like Octopus, frogfish, seahorses, rays, shrimp, squid. We did see baby fish, and we did see lionfish. As far as eels go... we saw quite a few spotted and golden, but only a few sharptail and one chain moray, no green morays this trip. Two of the spotteds we saw had eye injuries - lionfish maybe?
Since weather was bad, very very windy, when we were there, we did not get down to the southern sites. We were told by a few brave souls that they saw a couple of eagle rays down there and some bigger angels, etc. But everyone was talking about the lack of seahorse, octopus, squid, frogfish. Our dive shop guys even said they have no idea where they are going or why. A big mystery.

robin

 

[BDSC]

Just got back from our annual Bonaire trip and mabe it is just me but it seemed that overall there were fewer fish than in past trips.

I have noticed the same thing. The amount of fish life around Bonaire has declined in my opinion. It's still a great place to dive but I have really been thinking of giving Curacao a try on my next trip to the area.