Winning lionfish battle #2

[b-dog]

Let me say that fish do not train their young like humans do. Fish lay their eggs and the young fend for themselves. How fish learn to eat lionfish is that there is variation among fish and some fish will be more interested in trying a new meal than others are and those fish that eat the lionfish will have a bigger food source and in turn will reproduce more often and in larger numbers so over time there will be more groupers, snappers and sharks thank recognize the lionfish as a food source and this will keep the lionfish numbers in check.

The same is true of the small fish that recognize the lionfish as a threat. Those that see the lionfish as a predator will survive to breed and pass on those traits to their offspring. Over time most of the fish of the reef will be wary of the lion fish because those that do not will have been eaten and unable to reproduce. This is how fish "learn", those that recognize the lionfish as a danger produce more fish with those traits while those that do not end up being eaten. The next generation of fish will tend to have the traits of the parent fishes that allowed them to evade the lionfish.

 

[Brules]

After 5 days of diving, and witnessing many many many lionfish killed, the fish (snappers and groupers - primarily snappers) are learning to folow the DMs for an easy meal. I did not once see a snapper go after a live lionfish. The DM's though are carrying nets with them in addition to their lionfish spears and are actively catching the smaller/younger/juv lionfish in the nets live, pulling them away from the reef and letting them go in open water near/in front of snappers etc to try to encourage them to eat them live. The few times I saw it in action, the snapper was having none of it and looked like a 3 year old being force fed spinach. Wasn't happening.

Good idea though.....as I think IF the fish can learn to follow a DM for an easy meal, why cant they learn to eat live LF. Seems like sound logic to me.

1st day there the DM killed 7 LF......I rather enjoyed watching the little monsters die horrible deaths.

 

[ggunn]

Just so I understand,

It is obvious that the fish have learned to eat the lionfish that the DMs kill, and actually follow groups of divers waiting for a handout. but you say it is impossible for them to learn to eat the fish they obviously like alive? or even eat the young when available?

it is also obvious that there are very few lion fish in the park, but you say that it is a waste of time to keep killing them and feeding them to the local fish?

Oh, and you say all these things because you are marine researchers and have proven that fish can not learn or have a few sites you can point us to where the research proved that fish can not learn? and we can all read these sites that prove this?

Just please help me understand your point of view... I am just an ignorant, average diver that observed the obvious benefit of feeding lion fish to the local fish in the hopes that one day they would learn to forage for their own and make the issue go away. since the problem seems to be that the fish do not have any natural predators in the northern hemisphere like they do in the southern. and my simple solution is to teach the same predators here that balance the numbers in the southern oceans what a lionfish tastes like.

Edit: When I said teach their young to eat lionfish, they do this with genetic memory and with imitation, if one fish sees another eating something they go to investigate and may learn themselves to eat the same fish. and for the rest, why do you think the fish go to school...

All sarcasm aside, you are free to hope for whatever you wish.

 

[geokr]

I've been diving Cozumel a couple of times a year since the LF invasion started in 09'. I've never seen a UW predator go after a LF whether wounded or not. I've been north, far south, (everything in between) and on the seldom visited east side and never seen another creature eat the dreaded LF. I've seen DM's try to get Nurse sharks and Eels to eat the killed/wounded LF and none have ever taken them.

I just went to the Bahamas three weeks ago and the Gov't there is encouraging the local DM's to kill the LF. The LF there are much bigger, as they have been there longer than our beloved Coz. Most LF that I saw killed with the slings where in the 12-18" range, in Coz I've seen most LF under 12".

You are right on, PJ. Nowhere in the known world are there regular predators of lionfish. Nowhere. Except in the minds of some who think that nature will find a way to balance this all out. Well, even they're right too. But the balance will be Lionfish - 95, Everything Else - 5. They'll only balance out when their prey, which is anything half their size and smaller, gets scarce. Then it will be too late for the reef. Not much you can do about them outside of the park (except maybe set up classes for the groupers to teach them how to prey on a new species - good luck with that when they soon get to be 18" as they are now in the Bahamas). Inside the park they need to be killed, trimmed and left for the native fish to thrive on. There's no other way to save the park environment that everyone enjoys and respects. As it is.

 

[Brules]

I would rather see a kill and drop policy, kill the things and drop em and let the other fish feed on the remains. Would be faster too....maybe they should allow dive knifes in the marine park again.

We could all strap on our old calf mount dive knifes hahahahahaha:

One stab with that and its good night mr Lionfish!

 

[b-dog]

I think that by feeding lionfish that are caught or killed to groupers will not train them to hunt them. The groupers just look for free handots and never learn to hunt them. It is sort like feeding the bears where they associate people with food. If DMs did not feed the groupers then they would be hungry and then they would hunt the lionfish but if the groupers get a free meal they will not bother hunting the lionfish. This is why I think that leaving lionfish alone is the best solution. If there are a lot of lionfish on the reef then groupers will eat them and those that are best at hunting them will reproduce more babies and these babies will have the same hunting traits as their parents have. Thus the best lionfish hunters will have the most babies and these babies will grow into adults that are good lionfish hunters. This is how evolution works. So by leaving things alone it is better for groupers to become good lionfish hunters.

 

[b-dog]

You are right on, PJ. Nowhere in the known world are there regular predators of lionfish. Nowhere. Except in the minds of some who think that nature will find a way to balance this all out. Well, even they're right too. But the balance will be Lionfish - 95, Everything Else - 5. They'll only balance out when their prey, which is anything half their size and smaller, gets scarce. Then it will be too late for the reef. Not much you can do about them outside of the park (except maybe set up classes for the groupers to teach them how to prey on a new species - good luck with that when they soon get to be 18" as they are now in the Bahamas). Inside the park they need to be killed, trimmed and left for the native fish to thrive on. There's no other way to save the park environment that everyone enjoys and respects. As it is.

What about in the Indian and Pacific oceans? The lionfish are not 95 percent of the fish in the reef systems there. There are lionfish but they are only seen occasionally. The fish in the Indian and Pacific oceans have adapted to the lionfish and recognize it as a threat and that is happening in the Caribbean now. Balance will happen.

 

[ggunn]

What about in the Indian and Pacific oceans? The lionfish are not 95 percent of the fish in the reef systems there. There are lionfish but they are only seen occasionally. The fish in the Indian and Pacific oceans have adapted to the lionfish and recognize it as a threat and that is happening in the Caribbean now. Balance will happen.

Yes, it will, but the clocks of evolution and adaptation turn very slowly.

 

[Brules]

I Still say get people to eat them.....extinction will be immenent.

 

[b-dog]

Yes, it will, but the clocks of evolution and adaptation turn very slowly.

The evolution is not a biochemical change it is a predator detection response. I am sure there are fish that will be able to recognize the lionfish as a threat in the general fish population and they will be the ones that live to reproduce and then the fish population will have whatever traits that make them more wary of the lionfish. I think this type of evolution will be pretty rapid.