The Marine Park had a big get-together last night to educate the divers and hopefully solve our lion fish problem. In the end, the truth is the lion fish is here to stay and here is why.
It's a damn durable fish. These things grow at a very fast rate and can be sexually mature in 6 months. They can survive for more than 4 months without eating anything and can thrive in almost any warm water environment. Reported sightings of lion fish are as deep as 500 ft. This is a tough fish! When food is good, they are voracious predators and will eat anything they can wrap their big mouths around. This is why they are so dangerous for our ecosystems.
The good news is they have behaviors which make them pretty easy to catch and kill. They are very territorial so you can find them in the same place day after day. They move pretty slowly and are not afraid of anything. They won't go run and hide when they see divers. If you want to catch them, they pretty much cooperate and let themselves be netted. Trouble is as divers, we must be very careful of their venomous spines. They have 13 on the top and 7 on the bottom of the fish and each one can stick a very painful bit of venom that can last for hours. If stuck heat is the key to break down the poison quickly.
The conference was given by REEF from the US. They have been studying this fish since its introduction in Florida in 1994. The presenter (Lad Akins) was very knowledgeable and did a good job of educating the more than 50 divers that came to help. He showed us how to capture them, how to avoid their sting and why we need to do something now. So far the lion fish has invaded much of the Caribbean and Atlantic seaboard. The only thing that seems to stop them is cold water. They seem to make it as far as Maine but don't survive the winter months. In the Bahamas they have devastated the native species and will likely do the same here if they get a chance. In the first areas they basically did nothing and let nature take its course. Cozumel is in the position to see if this constant vigil and kill method can slow the lion fish invasion and keep Cozumel's reefs in relative harmony.
So the plan is to capture and kill each fish we encounter. So far Cozumel has captured about 60 fish. This has a chance of working well in the areas where the divers frequent but on the East side of the island they will thrive. They can also live very well at depths deeper than we can go.
So our work is cut out for us and hopefully with the help of REEF, the Marnie Park and all the divers on our reefs we can maintain some control over this amazing fish. You have to respect a fish that is so hearty and well adapted. Too bad we have to kill it too.
Interesting genetics...from the blackbeard cruises site....
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What now?
Recently, NOAA scientists began genetic studies of red lionfish to determine how many separate releases in the Atlantic have occurred. Whitfield says that her team is finding evidence of a "severe genetic bottleneck," suggesting that perhaps no more than three pregnant females launched the expanding western-Atlantic red lionfish population. The data point out, says Whitfield, how large an impact the introduction of even a few aliens can have. The evidence is strong that the red lionfish and similar invaders came from the aquarium trade, says Brice X. Semmens of the University of Washington in Seattle. He and his colleagues found that the 16 nonnative fish-including red lionfish-most often seen by divers in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida are all common saltwater-aquarium species that probably moved into that state for the hobbyist trade. There's little ship traffic between the southeastern United States and the native waters of any of those species.
Additional data also point to the aquarium industry as the culprit. In the first 6 months of 2003, for instance, more than 7,500 red lionfish were imported into Tampa, according to Whitfield and a team of scientists at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. They reported in the March Biological Conservation that this species is among the top 10 saltwater fish, in terms of profitability, to the U.S. aquarium industry. Three years ago, Whitfield and Jonathan A. Hare, also of NOAA, prepared a report on red lionfish for their agency. In it, they argued that the aquarium industry "should be urged or required to distribute information warning against releasing live fish from aquariums." Government agencies might also consider banning the importation of live, nonnative fish-something that Bermuda now does.
In the meantime, Meister jokingly suggests a transitional strategy: recruiting coastal chefs to develop recipes for red lionfish. Everyone knows that "as soon as a fish tastes good, there's a market for it" - and soon, he quips, you see it fished to oblivion."
David