Lion Fish, an increasingly serious threat

[Downing]

We do not kill them when on trips with customers.

Why not? I'd love to participate in a lionfish kill and would happily rent a speargun to help.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

Downing, we plan monthly lionfish trips so will arrange one while you are here.

 

[Hank49]

Killing Lion Fish.
Are you prepared to do this for the rest of your lives, and your great great great great......grandkid's lives? Even in a limited area like Laughingbird Caye? That's what it will take to control their numbers, even just there.
To put it in perspective, get out a map of the reef and atholls. Now, note all the known dive buoys for known dive sites. The area actually dived with any regularity here is.....10% at best of the total reef? And that's not counting the depths that divers don't even reach.
Kill all you want to eat and enjoy, but I have no illusions that we can control them in the long term.

 

[Downing]

Ralph,

Cool!

Happy to help.

Killing Lion Fish.
Are you prepared to do this for the rest of your lives...

Yes.

...and your great great great great......grandkid's lives?

Hmmm. You'll have to ask them.

Kill all you want to eat and enjoy, but I have no illusions that we can control them in the long term.

I absolutely agree with you, Hank. It's going to take something creative, like developing a virus that kills only Lion Fish or some sort of Lion Fish only bug zapper. But until then, I'm all for killing as many as I can the old fashioned way, with a spear gun, one at a time.

What's really sad, after the destruction that they're wreaking in the Carribean of course, is that Lion Fish are among the most beautiful, exotic looking fish I've ever seen. If this were their natural habitat, I'd be all for making sure they were a protected species.

 

[diverdoug1]

Unfortunately, I fear there is nothing that can be done to significantly impact the expansion of distribution and numbers of Lionfish in the Caribbean. They will continue to spread until they are limited by reductions in the nutritional resources they are utilizing (in this case, juvenile reef species) and habitat saturation. Equilibrium will occur that causes a displacement and possible eradication of some native species. This appears to have been (or going to be) the case with a number of invasive species in North America. Examples would be Zebra mussels, Africanized Honeybees, Japanese Carp, and Snakehead fish.

 

[Hank49]

I absolutely agree with you, Hank. It's going to take something creative, like developing a virus that kills only Lion Fish or some sort of Lion Fish only bug zapper. But until then, I'm all for killing as many as I can the old fashioned way, with a spear gun, one at a time.

I understand the enjoyment in killing them. I still swat house flies and mosquitos.

 

[b-dog]

Well, you have to realize that the lack of top predators like snappers and groupers is the reason why lionfish are everywhere. The are just filling the niche that has been vacated by the lack of predators. There is some evidence that lionfish are good because they eat the smaller fish species that eat the invertebrates that eat the algae. So some say that the lionfish are actually helping the reefs because with less little fish there are more invertebrates that eat the algae that grows over the coral and smothers it.

I think people are just looking for something to take their aggression out on. The lionfish were put in the Caribbean by people and the reason there are so many is because people catch way too many predatory fish which leaves lionfish to fill their place.

I don't think that lionfish will destroy the reef system and I think that the fish will adapt by natural selection and balance will be restored. Nature will find a way as it always has. I think people should just leave lionfish alone and also stop overfishing as well.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

Hank is dead right when he says we will never get them under control by killing them with spears and we usually only see the ones at dive sites. At Spash we intend to focus first on dive sites and then go to other areas for a while until there are enough lionfish at the dive sites to go back again. Yes, we will be killing lionfish for a long long time. The worry about using a virus or something is that it may have effects that are as bad as or worse than lionfish.

 

[Doc]

We do not kill them when on trips with customers.

I believe that is a good policy.

A visitor's time is best spent with an attentive Divemaster who is focused on pointing out all the cool critters that inhabit our mutual barrier reef. There is so much here to see that is absolutely unique in the Caribbean, a DM's attention should be on the guests, being a naturalist guide and being observant of safety.

The hunting of Lionfish is a distraction for bored divers. Either they have become burned out as DM's and want some diversion, or they are visiting divers who have not yet begun to see and observe things past reef structure, Lobsters and big fish.

The hunting and the desire to bring such gear along has replaced the former front-runner among excess gear... the camera. Often divers would ask if they could bring their camera along on their open-water portion of their certification classes. Now, they ask if they can bring their Lionfish forks.

In olden days, new divers were content to stare at their SPG for the first ten dives. Now, in the age of Type A Multi-tasking, they want Ikelite cases for I-phones and the new found freedom to kill things.

Since you can't stab them in the water column.... now you see the reef take a pounding. Noobs with pointed sticks. As Dirt Harry said, "Marvelous".

Ciguatera? Eat up! That poison they might carry that is a toxin? It's been showing up in 40% of those sampled. Do you feel lucky? (Harry, again)

It was man's hubris that brought them here, now can you hear the echoes of hubris in the voices that prescribe remedies?

Congratulations Ralph on your operation's policy. It makes sense on so many levels.

 

[deeper thoughts]

I believe that is a good policy.

A visitor's time is best spent with an attentive Divemaster who is focused on pointing out all the cool critters that inhabit our mutual barrier reef. There is so much here to see that is absolutely unique in the Caribbean, a DM's attention should be on the guests, being a naturalist guide and being observant of safety.

The hunting of Lionfish is a distraction for bored divers. Either they have become burned out as DM's and want some diversion, or they are visiting divers who have not yet begun to see and observe things past reef structure, Lobsters and big fish.

The hunting and the desire to bring such gear along has replaced the former front-runner among excess gear... the camera. Often divers would ask if they could bring their camera along on their open-water portion of their certification classes. Now, they ask if they can bring their Lionfish forks.

In olden days, new divers were content to stare at their SPG for the first ten dives. Now, in the age of Type A Multi-tasking, they want Ikelite cases for I-phones and the new found freedom to kill things.

Since you can't stab them in the water column.... now you see the reef take a pounding. Noobs with pointed sticks. As Dirt Harry said, "Marvelous".

Ciguatera? Eat up! That poison they might carry that is a toxin? It's been showing up in 40% of those sampled. Do you feel lucky? (Harry, again)

It was man's hubris that brought them here, now can you hear the echoes of hubris in the voices that prescribe remedies?

Congratulations Ralph on your operation's policy. It makes sense on so many levels.

Here in the Keys a few restaurants have them on the menu. Based on these stats there could be issues with Ciguatera poisoning