[Coral-List] Control of lionfish

John Ogden jogden at marine.usf.edu
Tue May 5 15:19:58 EDT 2009


Bruce,

Good first point and more or less what I meant to say.  Let's 
distinguish control and eradication.  Control (living with) lionfish 
requires knowledge that could be side-tracked by expensive, extensive, 
well-meaning but ultimately futile eradication measures (and there are 
many people thinking this way).  I suggest that the time is now to use 
the event of invasion not just to document but to look at what is 
happening on Caribbean reefs as this invader is established.  Surely 
this will help gather knowledge knowledge useful to control.  In my 
opinion we will be living with lionfish from here on out.

Cheers.

Brice Semmens wrote:
> John,
>
> No one doubts mosquitoes are here to stay, yet most folk appreciate 
> control efforts (particularly in your neck of the woods!) Efforts 
> aimed at culling lionfish are principally intended to limit impacts to 
> already stressed reef communities. Put another way, the efforts are 
> only futile if the goal is erradication. I don't believe anyone 
> involved in these (well coordinated) efforts has eradication as a goal 
> at this point. It's also worth noting that any rigorous efforts aimed 
> at identifying lionfish impacts on a whole-reef scale should probably 
> attempt some version of BACI... note the 'control' part of BACI.
>
> So, the big question -- are you suggesting that folks forgo control 
> efforts in order to focus exclusively on documenting the undoubtedly 
> horrific effects of this invasion? To me that's like studying the 
> wiring diagram of a time bomb that's about to go off --  I'd rather 
> spend my time figuring out how to avoid as much of the blast as possible.
>
> My two cents.
> Brice Semmens
>
>
>
>
>
> John Ogden wrote:
>> Thinking back to the Diadema mass mortality of 1983-84 and the 
>> opportunities that were missed because of poor communications across the 
>> region, now would be a very good time to use our superb and ubiquitous 
>> communications to set up a coordinated observation network to see what 
>> is the impact of lionfish on populations of small reef fishes.  It 
>> appears that this idea could be trumped by well-meaning but ultimately 
>> futile attempts to remove them.  Who doubts that they are here to stay?  
>> It would be best we anticipate the future of Caribbean reefs with 
>> lionfish and try to get some data to help get our minds around this.
>>
>> Cheers all.
>>   
>>> From: Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute Network
>>> [mailto:GCFINET at LISTSERV.TAMU.EDU] On Behalf Of Dave Anderson
>>> Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2009 9:24 PM
>>> To: GCFINET at LISTSERV.TAMU.EDU
>>> Subject: [GCFINET] Cayman Islands Lionfish Update
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> This message was originally submitted by Bradley Johnson
>>> [mailto:Bradley.Johnson at gov.ky]  to GCFINet. 
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> As of 30th April 2009 we have caught 90 lionfish! This includes the 2 caught
>>> in Cayman Brac and Little Cayman in 2008 and 3 live specimens. They have
>>> been caught in water ranging from 3' down to 110', on all sides of the
>>> islands, and in all habitats.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> By island we have: 
>>>
>>> Grand Cayman - 44;
>>>
>>> Cayman Brac - 8;
>>>
>>> Little Cayman - 38. 
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Cayman Brac was hit by Hurricane Paloma in November and sustained severe
>>> damage to the Island, including their dive operations. The sightings have so
>>> far been primarily from divers, so with practically no diving in the Brac we
>>> are getting fewer reports of lionfish from there. We assume this will
>>> increase once the dive operations reopen.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> We have licensed approximately 163 divers to remove lionfish for us having
>>> 130 in Grand, 3 in the Brac, and 30 in LC. We will increase the number of
>>> licensed divers in the Brac once they get more dive staff back.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>>> Bradley C. Johnson 
>>> Research Officer
>>> Department of Environment
>>> Cayman Islands Government 
>>> PO Box 486 
>>> Grand Cayman  KY1-1106 
>>> CAYMAN ISLANDS
>>> 345-949-8469 Office
>>> 345-244-4168 Direct
>>> 345-949-4020 Fax 
>>>
>>> Website www.doe.ky 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>   


-- 
John C. Ogden, Director
Florida Institute of Oceanography
Professor of Integrative Biology
University of South Florida
830 First Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701 USA
Tel. 727-553-1100
Fax  727-553-1109
http://www.marine.usf.edu/FIO/
http://www.cas.usf.edu/biology/Faculty/ogden.html 




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