Lionfish Danger
On a dive boat in the Caribbean recently one of the divers commented on the “beautiful red fish with the ‘feathers.’” It was a lionfish, an exotic predator native to the tropical and sub-tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans that has invaded the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Divers as far north as Long Island, NY have reported seeing the voracious fish.
Lionfish are certainly beautiful. They are also deadly to pretty much everything their own size or smaller. They eat everything and have no natural predators outside of their own region. That makes then incredibly dangerous. On top of that, those beautiful “feathers” are actually highly venomous spines that pose a danger to not only divers but also anglers who may accidentally catch one of them –and even snorkelers. The venom has been likened to a severe bee sting and reportedly people who are allergic to bees can have very serious reactions to these fish.
Caribbean islands stand to suffer greatly from the invasion of these fish. There are various theories on how lionfish reached the US Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The most popular suggest that people imported the fish for home aquariums and when the fish got to big (or kept eating everything else in the aquarium) their owners simply released them into the wild.
Some reports suggest that lionfish wound up in the ocean after hurricanes knocked over aquariums, releasing the fish. The final theory is that these predators were swept up in the ballast tanks of large ships as juveniles. When the ships dump ballast, the fish are released into their new home.
No one knows if any of these theories is correct; I subscribe to the notion that it is probably a combination of all of them. What we do know is lionfish reach maturity very quickly and make baby lionfish easily.
To put it bluntly, there needs to be an eradication program to combat the invasion by these fish. In the Caribbean especially, governments need to empower and fund divers to go out and eliminate these dangerous predators. I support laws restricting fishing while on scuba, but this is different. These fish have the potential to damage or destroy reefs, kill all the other fish in the area and injure people who use the sea for recreation or employment.
As with so many environmental threats, time is already running out. A couple of years ago I might see one lionfish in perhaps 20 dives. The last time I was in the Caribbean I saw dozens on a single dive. That is an real threat and needs to be stopped now.
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