Invasive species from a different perspective...

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The Lion fish.

I went scuba diving today... First time I have been out in a while. Went to a place called Cassablanca.. about 32 miles offshore Jacksonville in 105 feet of water. It is an old purposely sunk ship.

Anyways, while I was laying on the bottom of the ocean, in search of grouper, experiencing total bliss, I witnessed what I have been reading about in scuba magazines for a while. The wreck was COVERED with Lion Fish.

A VERY basic breakdown of the situation is this.... It is a VERY poisonous predator fish. It is a bad mamma jamma. They come from Asia....
As it turns out the pet industry had a saltwater fish facility in Biscayne Bay, Florida that was destroyed during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Many of their specimens were accidentally released into the Atlantic Ocean, including six red lionfish. These fish survived and formed a colony on the Florida coast over the years as they reproduced.

Well to make a long story short, they are now all over the place... and it was clear to see that they played a major part in life on that ship wreck. What does it mean for the long run? who knows.

Thought I would share.

I think lionfish are absolutely beautiful. Would have loved to seen that!! It is true that they are one of the most venemous fish, yet in almost all cases, not fatal to humans.

It's like a rally nasty bee sting.
I got nailed by a 10 inch one when cleaning a tank a few years ago. Hurts like crazy but run your hand under the hot water (the hottest you can stand) and in a few minutes the pain goes away. It was sore for a couple of days but nothing major.
I got tagged by a tiny little bark scorpion and that pain was unbeleivable. The lion fish was a walk in the park next to that.

You scuba dive too? I just got certified in April.

well, I did not see them as beautiful at all. I thought they were VERY ugly because I know that they weren't supposed to be there... And I know that from what I have read, they ARE seriously changing the natural order of reefs from Key west all the way up to New York.

What will the final outcome be? That is the real question that is very troubling to me. Will they end all life in the ocean? No. Will they mess up the natural order of things and likely significantly the reefs look when I teach my sons to dive? Yes, they already have.

They are not by themselves fatal to humans. They cause extreme pain, headaches, vomiting, and trouble breathing. That combined with other factors can cause human fatalities. BUT that is not what this is about. It is about the unnatural changes to the reefs. Something that may not have ever happened without humans screwing things up.

Not only the reefs.

The black sea bass fishery has noticed the presence of lionfish, in the reduced numbers of black sea bass annual recruitment. Seems we aren't the only things out there that think black sea bass are tasty . . .

~Bruce, who spent part of the afternoon cutting back imported wild grapevine and Chinese bittersweet in his own suburban front yard.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

Anyways, while I was laying on the bottom of the ocean, in search of grouper, experiencing total bliss, I witnessed what I have been reading about in scuba magazines for a while. The wreck was COVERED with Lion Fish.

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You're going to give us a description like this without any pictures? C'mon now Mike, you've been around here long enough to know better than that. :D

i'd love it if people cared this much about kudzu. seriously, this crap is known to devour young children, small animals, and grandma if unatended! dangerous stuff1!!


:D

yea we screw alot of things up... lion fish, snake heads, depleting the ozone, nuclear war, where does it stop or where will the world be a century from now?

I went to the bahamas last november on my honey moon. My wife and I went scuba diving several times and saw many lion fish. Some were huge(looked about 18 inches) and seems like some hung out with each other, like 5 or 6 in a group just hovering around the ship wrecks, etc..

It didn't dawn on me that they didn't belong there until I read this post. I even had to look up their native range. Indo-West Pacific

Thanks for the interesting post Mike. I wonder if they weren't started there by man's mistakes. Could they have made it there naturally??? Is there proof of hurricane surviving lion fish?

good post.

The fact is that invasive species ARE a huge problem.

But the ones I am the most concerned about aren't reptiles.

Asian carp(aka silver carp) and zebra mussels top my list of "invasive animals of most concern). I also live in the midwest, which is a factor for that certainly.

Neither of those species were brought into the waters of Minnesota due to the pet trade.

Tilapia are also a growing concern. I hear they can even survive in drainage water (not sewage obviously :D).

I have a fried who lives in Puerto Rico and she told me that Lion fish just started showing up at the beaches. CRAZY

Apparently, they're in MD too. And let me tell you, the Chesapeake is far from tropical...

Mike, you should have speared as many as you could.

i have many friends here at work that dive all the time and they tend to do just that. i haven't witnessed them in the wild yet, but if i ever do......

I knew lionfish were invasive, but to think that it started from 6 released animals? Whoa. Now I'm starting to see why the ecologists are so paranoid.

I have read a lot of different articles on the Lion Fish, they have been a large cause to the decline of grouper in the ocean because they eat the babies. They basically eat anything that will fit in their mouth and nothing will eat them since they are poisonous.

From what a lot of people say they are great to eat, their poison is only in their spines and you can clip them off with some pliers and cook them from there.

A lot of coastal towns have Lionfish rodeos where they show people how to properly catch them and teach them to cook them.

to address what some of you mentioned:
1.) I forgot my dive camera!!!!!!
2.) I don't have a spear gun yet (planning on gettting one for my birthday in a month)

I believe there is no doubt the ones in the Bahamas are from the same escaped fish. think about it... the bahamas is only like 300 miles from floridas coast. they have already made it all the way up to New York which is 4 -5 times further then that!

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they are going to be big news in the future. I am sure they are taking a toll on the grouper species, because they hang out in the same areas of the reef as the grouper! From what I saw they tend to stay on on the edge of the ship, and under things.

The thought of them being at the beach is EXTREMELY disturbing. The reason I say this is they have no fear off humans at all whatsoever. I was literally inches away from them and they had NO interest in moving. I shined my light in their eyes, and even poked one with my blunt point dive knife! It scooted over maybe 2 inches and then just sat there and looked at me with all its spikes stuck out in the attack position!

As one of the greatest lovers of the ocean and beach in this world, there is no way I would ever step foot in a beach where these things are hanging out in the waves. If you stepped on one you would be seriously injured, and to make things much worse, It probably would only scoot away a few inches making it likely to be stepped on again on the way out while screaming in pain... Oh yeah, and where there is one there is 20.

Yup here in florida we have a LOT of saltwater aquarist including me....well what these people do (the ones who have aquariums) is let their fish go into the wild. Why?? I don't know, they're idiots. But florida has had A HUGE lionfish problem....and I guess it still exsist

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Originally Posted by Lucas339

Mike, you should have speared as many as you could.

i have many friends here at work that dive all the time and they tend to do just that. i haven't witnessed them in the wild yet, but if i ever do......

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I would have no issue with this, but I have to wonder... whats the point? The way I see it the permanent damage is already done! They would be VERY easy to kill because they just sit there and look at you. I would venture to say that even in just two tanks of diving I could have killed every one of them on that wreck. Problem is tho, when they have ZERO predators (other then humans) to control their numbers, in a few weeks that same site would be covered in them all over again.

Perhaps they should open lionfish to unlimited numbers for collection and tell the people who sell such fish to go to town.

I mean.. if we can wipe out passenger pigeons and almost take down the buffalo.. why not cut the numbers of lionfish down to managable so there's a chance of wiping them out?

Places on reefs have been nearly denuded of fish harvested for the pet trade, so why not harvest the lionfish? A few nets, and a few holding tanks. Kill any that are "overflow" numbers that you can't sell. Sounds cold, but they are a bad species to introduce.

Pretty interesting stuff.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/flo...nts-us-do.html

"They are pretty, but bold. They are voracious, eating anything from tropicals to juvenile grouper and snapper. They have no local predators. They are incredibly prolific. They are sexually mature when they are only inches long. Unlike most fish which have a batch of eggs once or twice a year, lionfish reproduce regularly, spawning thousands of eggs. Once they are established, they seem impossible to contain, with serious impacts to the local habitat."