Thanks to Discovery Diving !!!

[robint]

Let me guess - they taste like chicken!


I have actually heard they taste like sea bass.

Yum........ if they taste like sea bass, one of the tastiest fish on the planet but is endangered, I will be eating them!!!

 

[diveonthefive]

There where still a whole bunch there on Wednesday :shocked2:

NOAA wanted live ones to study. That is why the count was lower from the 1st one.

 

[Sinbad the Diver]

Since the little buggers are settled in NC it's going to be interesting to see if humans taking them will help or hurt their populations. If they are as destructive to an ecosystem as is expected, I would think they would eventualy destroy their food source and themselves in the process (kinda a peric victory to get rid of them). If humans take them, but obviously won't take them all, will it end up helping them by protecting them from themselves. Like the whitetail deer populations in the mid-atlantic, by opening up hunting and "culling the heard" it has allowed the populations to be healthier and stronger, causing them to reproduce even faster.

 

[fireflock]

I doubt the numbers being taken right now (or ever?) would have any noticeable impact on their population. Lionfish are just everywhere now, including lots of places that divers never visit.

Whatever happens, happens. We can just watch and eat a few along the way.

FWIW, it's common for an introduced species to have a huge initial population boom followed by a semi-crash and then return to a much lower population level. That's my completely out of thin air prediction for this one