How do we eradicate lionfish?

Is it possible to eradicate lionfish from our waters?

In the past couple of decades since lionfish really started taking over the reefs in Florida, The Bahamas, the Caribbean, and along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, we’ve speared, hooked and cooked lionfish in the hundreds of thousands. But can we eradicate lionfish?

Unfortunately, we’re still a long way from controlling their spread, but a new front is opening in the war against the Indo-Pacific invaders: traps designed exclusively to harvest them.

Trap ’em

Commercial fishers in the Florida Keys have been very successful at catching lionfish in their lobster traps. During the eight-month-long, 2017-18 lobster harvest season, trappers hauled in nearly 100,000 pounds of the venomous-spined exotics, and they weren’t even trying. One fisherman accounted for 30,000 pounds of that total, mostly from depths of more than 100 feet. Lionfish diving derby catches were less than half that amount. Raking in a tidy $6.25 per pound, harvesters were barely able to keep up with the high demand from restaurants and grocery stores.

A diver spears one of many lionfish during a lionfish derby.

The bountiful lionfish bycatch gave the Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association an idea to test four trap designs. The group spent three years pushing reams of documents through a Byzantine gauntlet of state and federal bureaucracies. They also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to finance the experiment with neither a yes or no from regulators. Finally, the Association threw in the towel last April. Association executive director, Capt. Bill Kelly, believes resource managers were stalling for fear of creating a new commercial trap fishery in waters where the gear had long been banned. But Kelly said all his group wanted to do was test “proof of concept.”

Not long afterward, NOAA Fisheries, which regulates commercial and recreational fishing in the U.S. and manages a network of marine sanctuaries, announced it was open for public comment on a similar, but scaled-back trapping permit request from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Kelly calls it “an absolute slap in the face” to his industry.

Spur Innovations

Early this year, the FWC awarded some $250,000 in grants to five organizations to test gear designed to harvest lionfish in waters too deep for safe recreational diving. The University of Florida plans to look at a “non-containment curtain trap.” Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) wants to figure out whether recordings of “lionfish vocalizations” could be a tool for attracting the predators into a trap. American Marine Research Company plans to develop an underwater drone to harvest lionfish. R3 Digital Sciences is working on extension kits for existing commercial lobster traps, and Atlantic Lionshare Ltd. is developing a remotely-operated underwater vehicle to suck up lionfish from the depths.

Meanwhile, the FWC has stepped up its incentives for recreational and commercial divers by awarding thousands of dollars in cash and prizes in the Lionfish Challenge which ran through September 3rd. The agency will hold its second lionfish summit October 2-4 in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where divers, scientists, conservationists, and resource managers are invited to discuss the latest developments in lionfish control.

While both divers and trappers are the most effective soldiers in lionfish naval warfare, anglers have also joined the fray. Scientists from Nova Southeastern University near Fort Lauderdale regularly catch the enemy species on hook-and-line using live bait on deep wrecks. Since the International Game Fish Association opened lionfish to world record recognition in 2013, the all-tackle winner has changed hands three times. The current mark is Jesse Paul Moore’s 2-pound, 12-ounce fish he caught in August 2015 using sardine for bait off Madeira Beach on Florida’s West Coast.

Uphill Battle

No one really believes that lionfish can be eradicated from infested waters. With females capable of producing 50,000 eggs every three days that mature in a year, the species seems too well established to knock out completely. However, control efforts have succeeded in driving them off of some local reef systems, and those who care about the health of the marine ecosystem aren’t willing to give up the fight.

By Sue Cocking, Southern Boating October 2018

For more, check out our article on eating lionfish.

Lionfish: Eat ’em to Beat ’em

Lionfish don’t belong here.

Their natural domain is in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. There, they are a normal and healthy part of reef ecosystems. Here in the US? Not the case.

Learn more about the 2019 Lionfish Challenge.

About 30 years ago, the (admittedly beautiful) red-and-white striped lionfish began appearing off the coast of Florida. They’ve expanded quickly since, demolishing native fish populations in the Caribbean and up the Eastern Seaboard.

The pesky species can and will eat anything: their appetites are voracious and unending. Unfortunately, native species of small reef fish like baby snapper and grouper don’t recognize them as predators. That makes bad things happen to the ecosystem.

In the Bahamas, the bait fish (or prey fish) biomass fell between 65 to 95 percent after the initial invasion. That’s according to Stephanie Green, a marine scientist at Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions.

And the big predators, like sharks, don’t see the fish as a meal. Their venomous spines have allowed them to spread rampantly. So, it’s the perfect storm: lionfish spread, unchecked, devastating reef ecosystems and fisheries.

Unchecked may even be an understatement. The fish are prolific breeders, putting even rabbits to shame. A single female can release upward of 6 million eggs a year. Those millions of eggs are capable of floating for more than a month, dispersing for thousands of miles, spreading into new areas. They’re everywhere: lionfish can be found in shallow mangroves or 1000 feet deep, which is why populations are hard to wipe out once established.

Eat ’em to Beat ’em

That’s not to say that efforts are not underway. With nets and spears, divers and scientists are taking to the water to turn the hunters into the hunted. There are lionfish hunts from North Carolina to the Caribbean and beyond. Organizations like REEF and agencies like Florida Fish and Wildlife provide resources and information on hunts, biology and more.

There is some good news though. Lionfish are delicious. There’s even a “Eat ’em to beat ’em” campaign among conservationists, biologists, hunters, and chefs. Comparable to any other flaky white fish, the species can be baked, fried, ceviche-d, and more. Whole Foods is developing its own product lines, too, like smoked lionfish. There are a million ways to prepare it.

Here’s one way we like:

Lionfish Nachos

from The Lionfish Cookbook by Tricia Ferguson and Lad Akins

Ingredients:

8 wonton wrappers
1/2 cup oil
8 lionfish fillets
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Thai chili sauce
1 cup seaweed salad*
1/4 cup wasabi mayonnaise

*Items can be found at Asian markets.

Directions:

Place oil in a small frying pan and heat oil until hot. Place one wonton wrapper in at a time. Cook briefly until it starts to bubble (approximately 10 seconds). Turn and cook another 10 seconds. Remove and drain on kitchen towel.

Put wasabi mayonnaise into a squeeze bottle and set aside. Combine sweet soy sauce, sweet chili sauce together in a bowl and set aside. Spray skillet with non-stick cooking spray.

Cook lionfish fillets in a skillet over medium-high heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until flaky and tender. Cut or flake lionfish so it is in small pieces. Toss lionfish in soy sauce mixture.

Place lionfish on wonton wrappers, top with seaweed salad and drizzle with wasabi mayonnaise.

By Erin Brennan

Threat From Invasive Species Grows

The lion might be the greatly awed and admired king of the jungle, but the lionfish is quickly becoming the much-despised scourge of the Gulf of Mexico. The invasive species is on the rise.

The lionfish is an invasive species that are wreaking havoc in the eastern Gulf as well as along the U.S. Atlantic coast and throughout the Caribbean. With their beautiful stripes, jutted-out jaws and protruding spike-like fin rays, lionfish are exotic sights. You’ve surely seen them in saltwater aquariums and pet stores. That—and their native Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean waters—is where they belong, not the Gulf, where they have few natural predators to slow their explosive population growth and bring balance to the region’s biodiversity.

Lionfish eat juvenile members of sportfish species that help sustain the region’s economy and are popular with anglers in the Gulf. What’s more, the venomous spines found on lionfish are a threat to humans. A sting from one of their fin rays can be fatal to young children and elderly people. Though rare, adults can also be killed by a lionfish sting, whose other effects include nausea, vomiting, fever, dizziness, and even temporary paralysis.

In less than 10 years, the invasive species have firmly established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in North American waters. How they got here and rose to prominence so quickly is being investigated, but the National Ocean Service believes the species’ ascendancy can be attributed, at least in part, to people dumping unwanted lionfish out of their home aquariums and into the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean.

The lionfish problem has become so rampant that it’s come to the attention of Republican Carlos Curbelo, a U.S. Representative of Florida’s 26^th District. Working with fishermen in the Florida Keys, Curbelo has crafted a bill that, if enacted, will direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to award $1.5 million in competitive higher education grants for the purpose of studying and combating lionfish.

Introduced in March and co-sponsored by U.S. Representatives Curt Clawson, R-Fla., and Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., the bill is named the Finding Innovative Lionfish Elimination Technologies (FILET) Act of 2016. Should it become law, the FILET Act will use funds from NOAA’s existing budget to help researchers develop lionfish mitigation technologies, including traps and countermeasures.

Lionfish have been in Clawson’s sight for nearly a year. He introduced his own federal legislation in July 2015 that would add lionfish to a list of “injurious species that are prohibited from being imported or shipped,” according to the bill’s title. Curbelo, who is supporting the bill as a co-sponsor, cites a bevy of reasons for going after lionfish, including their prodigious ability to reproduce: a single female lionfish is capable of laying millions of eggs each year.

Moreover, an adult lionfish can consume large quantities of sportfish—as many as 40 in a single day. These impressive pests also feed on marine herbivores that help protect coral reefs by removing excess algae.

The lionfish problem has become so bad that organizations like the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), based in Key Largo, Florida, are sponsoring organized lionfish hunts in which divers can take home cash prizes based on the number of lionfish they bag (and yes, lionfish can be cooked and eaten).

Even if you’re not an angler or diver, you can still help fight the lionfish scourge. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has created an online form for the public to submit lionfish sightings as well as a lionfish tracking app for smartphones to support the cause. For more information, visit their website at: myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/lionfish/report.

By Brian Hartz, Southern Boating Magazine June 2016

South Carolina Receives Multiple Boating Grants

Four South Carolina marine businesses received hefty Boating Infrastructure Grants (BIG) this year. The Charleston City Marina replaces electrical receptacles on its MegaDock with about $20,000; The Myrtle Beach Yacht Club replaces its fuel system with nearly $45,000; Beaufort’s Downtown Marina upgrades its transient dock with almost $1 million, and St. Johns Yacht Harbor constructs 50 transient slips and installs a state-of-the-art fueling system with over $953,000. Boating excise duties finance the BIG trust fund.

The aggressive lionfish significantly threatens Florida’s native wildlife and habitat. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) held a Lionfish Summit in 2013 to catalyze the necessary changes for reduction and easy removal of lionfish, and to develop markets for them. The commission launched the free app “Report Florida Lionfish” with educational information, safe handling guidelines and a data-reporting form for public lionfish spotters and harvesters. App users can also share their photos of lionfish in Florida waters. Those without smart devices may submit reports at myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/recreational/lionfish.

Miami Megayacht Marina will provide much-needed slips for 200-foot megayachts on the Miami River next summer. This 14-slip facility replaces an existing well-worn marina. Each covered slip comes with sheltered parking for three vehicles, indoor storage and quarters for captain and crew (unique in the U.S.). Covered tender storage, an owner’s vault and additional flexible space are also included. Marina amenities include a clubhouse with a coffee shop, internet, dining area, spa, exercise room, media room, and swimming pool. Marine-related businesses are onsite. Dredging and a new seawall are planned. The Miami Megayacht Marina is expected to revitalize the area and its economy.

New Smyrna Beach, Florida, was the final destination for 67-year-old kayaker Alexander “Olek” Doba. He paddled solo more than 6,000 miles from Portugal over the course of 195 days. After leaving Lisbon last October he encountered storms, mechanical problems, a challenging Gulf Stream, and winds that blew him off course. In April, Doba and his 21-foot kayak was escorted into a New Smyrna Beach harbor by 15 local kayakers. When he kissed Florida’s sandy soil his admirers on shore called him a “tough guy.”

ICW drawbridges in Daytona Beach’s Volusia County and other ICW locales will vanish in future years due to expensive bridge maintenance with custom-made parts and tender costs as much as $400,000 per year. A high-rise bridge replacing a Volusia County drawbridge next year will cost $43 million with mostly federal funds. Although expensive to build, high-rise bridges’ annual costs are less. ICW cruisers will still have to wait for bridge openings since fundraising for new bridges takes time.

S.E. Seaboard boat drivers of certain ages will now be required to take classes on safe boat handling. States’ age requirements are North Carolina, under 26; South Carolina, under 16 if operating a boat with 15 horsepower or more; Georgia, born on or after January 1, 1998; Florida, born on or after January 1, 1988, if the boat has 10 horsepower or more.

By Nancy E. Spraker, Southern Boating August 2014