safety

LION FISH – THE CARIBBEAN WILL BE CHANGED FOREVER!

Here are the highlights of the South Atlantic/Caribbean lionfish situation:

For who-knows-how-long, aquarists have probably been releasing lionfish into the waters off Florida – lionfish are beautiful and exotic, but they grow very quickly and are likely to eat all the other fish in the tank. Sometime around 1990, enough lionfish were around to create a breeding population. They spread fairly quickly from South Florida, north along the US East coast, and over to Bermuda and the Bahamas.

A few lionfish here and there must have seemed exotic and interesting. By the time the voraciousness of these fish registered, their invasive population was well-established. There are photos of reefs in the Bahamas showing lionfish and no other fishes. Lionfish on a patch reef will consume around 80% of the other residents of such a reef, especially young fishes who settle there! Lionfish can eat fishes as large as one-quarter the size of the lionfish, and South Atlantic-Caribbean fishes don’t recognize the lionfish as a predator, so they don’t necessarily evade it. Whatever Caribbean predators might prey on lionfish don't recognize them as prey; also, many Caribbean predators, such as groupers and the larger snappers, have very small populations so aren't there to keep the lionfish population down. At Stuart Cove's they tried feeding lionfish to the sharks, and the sharks spit them out!

Lionfish have venomous spines, and the venom of tropical Pacific fishes is generally much more potent than that of tropical Atlantic fishes. Lionfish can spawn at least monthly and may spawn as often as every four days, year-round; the female can release 30,000 eggs per spawning. Female lionfish as small as 13 cm (just over 5"), and males as small as 10 cm (around 4"), can be sexually mature. Lionfish have been seen as deep as 500' (from a submarine in Bermuda), and as shallow as 10' or less.

Somewhere, I think the Bahamas, they had a lionfish rodeo or whatever they called it. Collected/killed more than 1000 lionfish in four hours! Best thing about lionfish is they're apparently tasty. They're on the menu in grand Bahamas and a few other Caribbean/Bahamas locations.

The group most active in the struggle against lionfish is REEF – look at reef.org, then their Projects, then the Lionfish Project, and you'll get more details, as well as a link to the US Geological Survey, which keeps an eye on invasive species.

Lionfish situation on Bonaire:

From late 2008, lionfish spread down the Caribbean islands and along Central America. The first ones were sighted off Bonaire, Aruba, and Curacao in October of 2009. The policy of the Bonaire National Marine Park has been to remove lionfish from the Park; so far more than 175 have been collected and removed. They’re preserved at the CIEE facility and are used for studying DNA, stomach contents, sexual maturity, and other characteristics.

The Caribbean will be changed forever. The fight against lionfish is just beginning and is still evolving. Maybe by next year a film will be created; regardless, it's a message that needs to be available to divers!