Curacao lionfish

[aquajon]

diving on the west coast of Curacao this week and suprised at the number of big lionfish that we are seeing. have marked a few of them with flagging tap, but after finding out that the people that you report to have no way to get out and take care of the fish i have stoped marking them and now just taking more photos. we have seen 1 that was a baby at 3" long and 6 or 8 that were well over 12" wish i had a spear with me cause they do taste good. longer trip report to follow later with pics.
but we have seen them at Kleine Knip, Playa lagun, playa Largu, and the baby we saw down at the tug.

 

[bkpix]

Ya, sad but true. When we were there in March we saw one or two Lionfish most every dive. Looks like they are there to stay.

This one was at Playa Lagun.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

Sadly, when I asked about this issue I was told in no uncertain terms that the dive ops on the island would not allow me to dive with a spear to kill the little bastards.

Exterminating them is extremely unlikely, but if you can't kill them, then there's no chance of even controlling their invasion.

 

[Korsu]

Even if you had taken all the ones you saw, and all the dive sites on the Caribbean side were free of "visible" Lionfish there will always be plenty on the North shore where few people dive.
They do need to be on the menus though.
NB: not carrying a spear, just a barbecue fork!