The Great Lionfish Debate

Lionfish photo taken 2006 in Bimini, Bahamas

For those divers who spend most of our bottom time in the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Southeast coast of the US, the word Lionfish might make you cringe a little. Seeing them underwater tears you apart – half of you wants to run over and stab it to death, while the other half whips out a camera to take a picture of those elegant fins.

I’ve spent about a year and a half listening to people rave about this problem – from experts in the field to passionate divers – and I’m going to try to set the record straight about how the problem started, what’s being done to try to curb the invasion, and if we have any hope for the future. And I’m open to arguments – I’m no expert, just a good listener.

I forget that some people have no idea what I’m talking about, so let me start over. In the early 1990s a handful of sightings of Pacific Lionfish were reported off the coast of Florida. No one thought much of it, aquarium releases, ballast water, they’ll just go away. Until they didn’t.

I spent from 2003-2006 diving daily in Bimini, Bahamas and didn’t see one – out of sights out of mind. In May of 2006 I was DM’ing on a liveaboard in Nassau and my divers came up talking about this crazy fish they saw and showed me a picture. From that day on it seemed like they were everywhere. Bahamas, Florida, even down to the Turks and Caicos. But it’s just a fish, right? No big deal.

In the last two years I’ve learned differently. I’ve spoken extensively with officials at Reef.org, corresponded with some folks at NOAA, and done some of my own research and the truth is scary. According to research and DNA testing, most of the Lionfish that are found all over the Caribbean now can be traced back to about 9 individuals, probably released in the early 1990s (possibly destroyed personal aquariums from Hurricane Andrew in ’92). The first few years, they’d been reproducing quietly, amassing an army.Then as the years went by they began to appear in greater numbers, firmly establishing themselves on the other side of the world from where they belong. Nothing on this side of the world knows to eat them, and they have quite an appetite – a recipe for disaster in the delicate balance of the marine food chain.

Even in their larval stage, nothing eats these guys. Most fish spawn close to the reef, spewing their gametes a few feet up in the water column, easy meals for egg-eating predators. Lionfish actually spawn almost at the surface of the water, far from where these think to look for tasty treats like fertilized eggs. Females produce 2,000-30,000 eggs in a set of mucus-sealed sacs which guarantee high fertilization rates, and of those fertilized eggs about 80% survive due to low predation of the eggs at the surface.

Post-larval, there are anecdotal reports of specimens found in the stomachs of a handful of Nassau and Tiger groupers, and rumored Lemon sharks, but compared to the Lionfish’s insatiable appetite, that’s not keeping up. In the Pacific there is the species diversity and abundance to support their voracious appetite, but not in the Atlantic. To boot, the Lionfish are quite fond of the taste of our own reef predators in juvenile form: the same groupers and snappers that could potentially prey on the Lionfish later in life.

Their range is quite astounding. Since 1994 Lionfish have been reported as far north as Rhode Island and only a few months ago there were first-time sightings in Bonaire, Curacao and St. Croix. In the Bahamas there are reefs where you’re seeing dozens of lionfish in one small area – and little else in the way of other fish! According to this map from REEF and NOAA there’s not a whole lot of Lionfish-free Caribbean left.

Ok, great, so they’re taking over. Now what? We can’t undo what’s been done; eradicating this species from the Atlantic is at this point impossible. But can we get the invasion under control? Maybe.

1) Report all Lionfish sightings. At REEF.org or NOAA or both. If collection is possible in the area you’re diving, make it happen.

2) Support legislation limiting the import of non-native species to your environment. US residents see HR 669

3) Spread the word. Lots of divers know nothing about this and the more you talk about it the bigger the response will be.

4) I’ve heard one suggestion that exploits the irony of the human-environment interaction and makes me giggle. We’re pretty good at driving species to extinction, right? So why not use that ability to our advantage for once. Promote Lionfish as a delicacy in restaurants, make up some story that the venomous spines enhance fertility (once the venom is removed of course…), something that will encourage the overfishing of Lionfish. Of course this is dependent on finding an efficient fishing method that only catches Lionfish.

For more information, visit REEF.org, read this article by Hare and Whitfield, or use your google-fu.

Resources:

Hare and Whitfield 2003. An integrated assessment of the introduction of lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles complex) to the western Atlantic Ocean. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 2. 21 pp.

Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce: http://www.sms.si.edu/IRLSpec/Pterois_volitans.htm

NCCOS/NOAA

REEF.org Lionfish Invasion Program

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