Winning lionfish battle #2

[cvchief]

Seriously, isn't it in the long run kinda bad to hand or spear point feed the eels and such? Can't that lead to the kind of bad interaction where the eels or whatever comes up on people and then someone accidentally gets bit?

 

[Mike]

Just so I understand,<BR><BR>....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? <BR><BR>Just please help me understand your point of view... I am just an ignorant, average diver ...

We aren't scientists, but this is what those that are scientists say

By Dan Roberts, Research Scientist<BR>Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Overall, feeding marine fish is a bad idea for everyone, including divers, fish and the ecosystem. Contrary to popular belief, fish have memories and can learn. Through behavioral conditioning, fed animals learn to associate people with a meal. When this happens, fish anticipate the hand-feeding experience and depend on handouts from divers.

Hand-feeding marine fish results in a variety of negative impacts. Most marine fish have around 10 essential amino acids required for growth and health maintenance. Fish cannot make these acids on their own, and they receive these building blocks from food. Fish generally consume a wide variety of prey in order to meet dietary requirements. To obtain the necessary nutrients, fish have complex feeding cycles. Seasonal, daily and other temporal feeding strategies make up a fish's foraging behavior. Fish conditioned to take an easy meal from divers begin anticipating meals, which interrupts natural feeding cycles. A fish conditioned to feed on diver deliveries may actually stop normal foraging patterns and become malnourished, stressed and can even die.

In addition to nutritional consequences, hand-fed fish are especially vulnerable to predators. In carnivorous fish, sensations associated with feeding can override other associations, including predator avoidance and protection. Competition for the handout interferes with natural instincts and behaviors, which are essential for survival and cohabitation with other species.

Hand-feeding creates other ecological disturbances. These disturbances change community structure. Introducing a ration of food to a fish, even a ration of semi-natural food, is significant. By affecting the natural feeding behaviors, fish feeding can destabilize a number of ecological relationships including species abundance. The effects are unique to each marine community, but there is a measurable impact with recurring and prolonged disruption.

Marine life maintains balanced ecological relationships by competing for habitat and food. In many cases, different species share space and alternate the use of that space by feeding at different times of day. Some species do not interact at all. This intricate balance of behavior can be interrupted by the introduction of a free meal from a diver. Unnatural feeding overrides normal competitive relationships among species. It fosters combative behavior among species that, under usual circumstances, may never come in contact with each other. Combative behavior can seriously injure animals. For example, pelicans and harbor seals rarely come in contact with each other in a typical habitat. When people feed pelicans, harbor seals may actually bite the birds as they compete for food.

Hand-feeding-induced attacks on humans do occur. Feeding wildlife can place people in harm's way. In a letter to Governor Bush, a diver described a bad experience as a result of feeding fish.

"On a dive vacation to Florida in 1999, I was attacked and bitten by a large green moray eel while on an interactive feeding dive...My attack was completely unprovoked, coming from behind."

Moray eels, sharks, barracuda, groupers and a host of other species are can pose an increased danger to divers as a result of hand-feeding.

In addition to behavior changes in wild fish, fish in captivity also exhibit altered feeding behavior. Species such as red drum and snook, maintained by the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, become almost tame and partially domesticated to the point where they learn feeding routines, including locations of feed, times of feeding and possibly even the person feeding them. Research has demonstrated this in shallow tanks with clear water, as well as in 1-acre ponds with cloudy water. In other studies, researchers have described groupers' readiness to approach humans when in captivity. Gag, a common grouper in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Ocean, would hold their heads out of the water to take food from humans, accepting direct hand-feeding in air much as you would feed a snack to a dog. This behavior demonstrates a feeding response overriding predator avoidance. Fish in nature learn the ways of the wild, while fish in captivity do not. Wild fish moved to captivity forget the ways of the wild and readily adapt to confinement and its routines. Scientists have repeatedly observed this in science-based programs. Fish reared in captivity for stock enhancement sometimes undergo a process called habitation prior to release into the wild. This process conditions the fish to a more natural feeding behavior so they have a better chance of surviving in the wild.

Perhaps the answer lies in simply banning the harvesting of groupers. Research is indicating that groupers don't need to be 'taught' to eat lion fish, they seem to already know how to eat them.

08 July 2011 Groupers help save fish
Groupers may be able to limit the invasion of lionfish on Caribbean coral reefs, according to new research conducted by The University of Queensland (UQ).

The discovery by a international research team, led by UQ's School of Biological Science's, Professor Peter Mumby, could help save native fish populations in the Caribbean, which are being decimated by the pretty but ravenous aquarium favourite.

"In 2006 we did not encounter any lionfish, but by 2010 they were at all of our 12 study sites. However, the number of lionfish was 10 times lower in reefs with lots of large groupers.&#8221; The team surveyed reefs inside and outside the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, which are some of the most diverse marine reserves in the Caribbean, having been established in 1959.

"With long-term protection from fishing, grouper numbers are among the highest in the Caribbean in these marine reserves and we believe that groupers are eating enough lionfish to limit their invasion on these reefs,&#8221; Professor Mumby said.

There are few known predators of lionfish. Although previous studies have found lionfish in the stomachs of groupers, Professor Mumby said it was exciting to discover that Caribbean groupers are able to control their numbers.

Although this news is positive for conservation efforts, Professor Mumby adds a cautionary note.

&#8220;Years of over-fishing means that densities of large grouper, like the Nassau grouper, are low throughout most of the Caribbean,&#8221; he said.

&#8220;If we want groupers to help us control the lionfish invasion we'll have to develop a taste for lionfish instead of grouper and drastically reduce the fishing of this species.&#8221;<BR><BR>The research team from the University of Queensland (Australia) and American Museum of Natural History (New York) studied the invasion of lionfish in a remote stretch of coral reef in the Bahamas. Their findings were recently published in the journal PLoS One and can be viewed online.<BR></EM><BR>

 

[BTravlin]

Good info Mike.

 

[Brules]

So the DMs should just maim the LF and let the fishes figure out on their own they are edible. Poke em and let em float or cut some fins off I say.

 

[MMM]

So the DMs should just maim the LF and let the fishes figure out on their own they are edible.

No, that would be inhumane. I want to kill the lionfish as quickly as I can. I think that what some others are saying (including me) is "don't then hand-feed the carcass to other critters". Kill them and let them go. What happens after that, happens after that.

 

[firstdive2005]

I will from now on just kill and drop them. who knows maybe that may be the best idea. I havent had any eels chase me but the groupers and snappers have certainly followed my dives. I dont think they are into me for my looks. They never used to follow me. So if efficacy means anything then hand feeding should be curtailed. I will continue to feed the anemones, because it's fun.
I read earlier that the dms should be teaching hunting them, there are dms shooting them that hit the coral too. I think more photographers and new divers hitting the coral with their fins are causing more damage than any sling users. I tell ya there have been a few I'd like to poke with my spear because of their lack of conscious behavior of the coral when swimming over them.

 

[cruiser]

I Still maintain that teaching HUMANS to eat Lionfish is the solution. If you want to make something extinct, get humans involved lol.

And make it commercially attractive

 

[1KWIK_69]

And make it commercially attractive

So now we've come back to convincing the Japanese that eating lionfish is good for virility, and promotes penis growth!

 

[ggunn]

And make it commercially attractive

There are obvious problems with commercially producing lionfish as a food source that don't exist for tuna, cod, salmon, etc.

 

[geokr]

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.

The population densities of lionfish in the Gulf and along the East Coast are 5-10 times greater than in their native environments. They really, really like it here and are thriving. Whatever &#8220;control&#8221; they may have in their native world, and no one actually knows what that is, is not present here and we probably don&#8217;t want it here either as it could just introduce another set of problems. Some have speculated that there is something in their native environment that decreases the viability of the egg sacs so they don&#8217;t successfully reproduce as much as they do here. Could be temperature, bacteria, a predator with an egg jones, no one knows. That theory seems most likely because no predator that routinely feeds off fully developed lionfish has ever been found. Their defense mechanisms when they're beyond being eggs are pretty good. Balance will happen. But it won&#8217;t favor the native fish.