Lionfish numbers

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my latest 2 pesos...for what it's worth...

Just got back from 18 days on Coz last week. I only saw 3 lionfish the entire trip (diving in the Marine Park and Villablaca Wall), no trips up north.

All 3 were juvies and I saw all 3 of them the last day diving of 11 days of 2 tank dives. This day it was cloudy and just after a slight Norte blew in the previous day, and on all other days the sun was bright and a lot of light on the reef. Not sure if the cloudy day brought the lions to a more shallow area, or if I was just lucky on that day and not so much on the others, but I didn't see one adult the entire trip.

and only once on the boat did anyone say they saw on during all of our dives, it was an adult on top of the reef at Gardens, I think.

I didn't go below 90' on this trip either, but did dive almost all the dive sites south of Santa Rosa (other than Chun Chacab and Meracibo (sp?)) at least once.
 
my latest 2 pesos...for what it's worth...

Just got back from 18 days on Coz last week. I only saw 3 lionfish the entire trip (diving in the Marine Park and Villablaca Wall), no trips up north.

All 3 were juvies and I saw all 3 of them the last day diving of 11 days of 2 tank dives. This day it was cloudy and just after a slight Norte blew in the previous day, and on all other days the sun was bright and a lot of light on the reef. Not sure if the cloudy day brought the lions to a more shallow area, or if I was just lucky on that day and not so much on the others, but I didn't see one adult the entire trip.

and only once on the boat did anyone say they saw on during all of our dives, it was an adult on top of the reef at Gardens, I think.

I didn't go below 90' on this trip either, but did dive almost all the dive sites south of Santa Rosa (other than Chun Chacab and Meracibo (sp?)) at least once.

dove Maraicabo today and they took about 12 lion fish, the nurse sharks on the net dive enjoyed them immensely!

tom
 
In Aruba this past March, I only saw about 9 total lionfish in a week of diving. However, these were all on regularly-dived sites, so I'm sure the population off the main trails is much higher. I agree that eventually native species will develop defenses for the lionfish, but I'm happy to keep spearing them to help that cause.
 
Hopefully more restaurants are offering them on the menu - getting people to eat them is surely the best way to limit their #'s. Everything else we eat tends to be hunted to near extinction....lol.
 
dove Maraicabo today and they took about 12 lion fish, the nurse sharks on the net dive enjoyed them immensely!

tom

Dove Maraicabo Shallows in February and saw a pile of them and good size. Little skiddy though.

I think in 4 days of diving last week and the week before, I only saw 6 or 7. Most small and hard to hit. More like net targets. I would like to go do some serious dinner hunting sometime. I think I might still have a standing invitation to go out on the park boat, I just never went.
 
Just watched the Natural Geo Wild Caribbean where they put 2 robotic submersibles looking at volcanic activity there. While at 600' at a reef they saw many many lionfish.... So depressing.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk H
 
It's not limited to Cozumel, either, fortunately.
We just got back from Cancun. On a trip a couple years ago, I shot 21 lionfish in one dive.
This trip, 7 Lionfish on 20 dives. :D
 

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