[Coral-List] hunting lionfish

Thu Jan 27 11:47:30 EST 2011

I think a very interesting question is ... why are all these lionfish larvae successfully settling out? Sure it would be nice to find predators of the large ones, but that, in my opinion, should not be the goal here. The goal should be to find out what preys on the larvae and the newly settled ones. Presumably this is what happens in the Indo-Pacific.

Create a bottle neck there, and the large ones should drop in number eventually, either naturally or by human intervention.

J. Charles Delbeek, M.Sc.
Senior Biologist, Steinhart Aquarium
California Academy of Sciences

p 415.379.5303
f. 415.379.5304
cdelbeek at calacademy.org
www.calacademy.org

55 Music Concourse Dr.
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco CA 94118

The world's only aquarium-planetarium-rainforest-living museum.

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Jessica Craft
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 6:02 AM
To: paul hoetjes; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] hunting lionfish

I'm curious--do lionfish cannibalize each other? What happens when a reef becomes overloaded with lionfish and a mostly monospecific fish community ensues, as Paul mentioned below? Is it possible for this species to eliminate itself through starvation on a localized level once they themselves have "overfished" a reef? This may not happen on larger reefs with higher connectivity, but on smaller, isolated patch reefs--is it possible to see exponential population growth followed by collapse?

Jessica Craft
Boca Raton, FLorida

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of paul hoetjes
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:02 PM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Cc: paul.hoetjes at rijksdienstcn.com
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] hunting lionfish

Hi Gert Jan, and all

You're probably right that overfishing of lionfish will not happen,
especially not considering that lionfish do not routinely enter fish traps
making the fishery very labor intensive; nor will predation by local
predators be enough. Lionfish are simply to prolific, and besides,
commercial fisheries will just stop fishing once levels are down and no
longer economically profitable.

Someone compared lionfish to rats, invasive species number one, and that is
very apt. They're tough, hardy,  ubiquitous, and they breed like rabbits
(sic). But as with rats, we cannot allow ourselves "to get used to them" or
they will overrun us (or at least the marine environment). People tell me
horror stories of reefs in the Bahamas where all you apparently see nowadays
is dozens of lionfish everywhere, and only one or two other fish such as a
wrasse. As with rats, only a continuous war against them is likely to keep
their numbers under control. As with rats this is only feasible with an
unrelenting, never-ending effort. The fact that lionfish are indeed
beautiful and look like flowers on the reef is a big disadvantage in this
battle since it makes more people 'sympathize' with them and unwilling to
kill them. Luckily lionfish taste good and unlike rats there is no general
(read western) revulsion against eating them, although we still need to
teach subsistence fishermen and most of the general public that they can
indeed be eaten without danger.

The most we can hope for is to keep lionfish numbers low in areas with a lot
of divers, and the only way to do that is to consistently and
unequivocally"demonize" the lionfish (aptly called "coral devil" in Dutch);
no 'let's wait and see', no 'nature will take care of its own'. In parallel
we need to encourage and enable divers (especially in the dive industry) to
kill every lionfish on sight, and make every effort to develop a market for
lionfish fillets. Of course this is fraught with uncertainties, such as the
risk of creating perverse incentives that would cause fishermen to spare
small lionfish so they can grow up to marketable size, or protest their
complete eradication if ever a biological weapon were to be discovered
(small chance since they do not have any impact on major economic interests
that would cause funding to appear to find weapons against them). But if we
are hesitant in taking decisive action against the lionfish it will be too
late and reefs with only lionfish will result, giving way to no reefs at all
as algae take over.

Especially in small islands with narrow fringing reefs and lots of divers
such as Bonaire and Curacao, it may be possible to keep lionfish numbers
down if sufficient numbers of frequent divers are committed to lionfish
eradication. This is now the strategy of the Bonaire Marine Park together
with the Bonaire dive operators. Curacao is following suit, and I gather
they are doing the same in Roatan. Special Marine Park-endorsed spears are
provided to dive masters/instructors and other frequently diving volunteers..
Even on dives with tourists the divemaster or instructor guiding the group
will take a spear along explaining in the pre-dive briefing what the problem
is and that they will kill any lionfish they meet. Usually this will result
in tourists actually helping in the search. Since most divers are very
conservation minded it is only in rare cases that someone will protest
against the killing, in which case the dive master or instructor simply
desists. If I understand correctly, in Roatan this method (where the small
lionfish are simply discarded) may have the additional benefit of training
snappers and other predators to target lionfish, first dead but hopefully
eventually live as well.

So, bottom line, let's NOT get used to them, let's hunt them seriously and
not for fun.

Best,
Paul

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 4:31 PM, GJ <GJ at fishion.eu> wrote:

> Intentional overfishing is an interesting new concept. I really hope the
> technology will be a bit better then as those applied to the 75% of global
> fish stocks that are completely fished or overfished. It will have to be
> very selective and non-destructive and effectively catch the whole
> reproductive size ranges of the species. Quite a challenge!
>
> The restaurant angle is interesting as it gives an economic incentive to
> hunt this fish. Maybe that will help a little in some locations.
>
> But the reality is that as with rabbits, cane toads and foxes in Australia
> and East Asian oysters, crabs, etc as well as certain American plants in
> Europe some translocated species just do too well. I am not aware of any
> successful attempt by humans to bring an invasive species to extinction
> (unfortunately quite different for many native species). There are simply
> too many remote locations, deep waters, etc to catch all those lionfish.
> Ironically, no-take marine reserves will be safe havens for them...
>
> With time predators will learn to catch a newcomer. It took Australian
> snakes decades (half a century?) to work out to attack a cane toad on the
> belly side and empty the inside while evading the venom on the back.
> Groupers will learn the eat the lionfish. If they are not immune to the
> venom they will become so. But even then predators may control their prey
> population to some extent, but they don't bring them to extinction
> (Lotka-Voleterra and all the good work done after that). Even the groupers
> will work out that it is not worth the effort to hunt down the last one.
>
> As said before, we will have to get used to them. At least they can be
> eaten, it is good sport to hunt them without danger to their population and
> they are good on pictures. Especially, if they get indeed much bigger than
> in the Pacific (why would that be???) they may attract some dive tourism $$.
> The rest of the Caribbean coral ecosystem will have to adapt to their
> presence.... despite its deplorable state...
>
> Maybe the focus should be on better protection of the reef ecosystems to
> strengthen its resilience instead of trying to remove the invader.
>
> Good luck, GJ
>
> --
> Gert Jan Gast
> Koningin Wilhelminakade 227, 1975GL IJmuiden, the Netherlands
> Ph +316 5424 0126, Fax +31255 521546, Skype gjgast
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-
> > bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Szmant, Alina
> > Sent: 25 January 2011 00:08
> > To: Debrot, Dolfi; 'Melanie McField'; Todd Barber
> > Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: Re: [Coral-List] hunting lionfish
> >
> > If a whole new fishery is developed for it, we should be able to
> > overfish it just as we've done with all the other edible reef fishes...
> >
> > ***********************************************************************
> > **
> > Dr. Alina M. Szmant
> > Professor of Marine Biology
> > Center for Marine Science and Dept of Biology and Marine Biology
> > University of North Carolina Wilmington
> > 5600 Marvin Moss Ln
> > Wilmington NC 28409 USA
> > tel:  910-962-2362  fax: 910-962-2410  cell: 910-200-3913
> > http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
> > *******************************************************
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-
> > bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Debrot, Dolfi
> > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 8:56 AM
> > To: 'Melanie McField'; Todd Barber
> > Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: Re: [Coral-List] hunting lionfish
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Been following the correspondence and developments on Caribbean
> > lionfish for some time now. Keep in mind: the lionfish hasn't even
> > gotten warmed up yet! But at the rate they are going now already we
> > could probably sink all our manpower, funds and effort into this
> > problem for the next century without even creating a dent...!
> >
> > Don't mean to discourage the hunters (it is a great sport btw!)...but I
> > can't more agree with the message that somebody else flopped by the
> > other day: "The lionfish is here... get used to it"  :(
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Al Debrot
> > Institute for Marine and Ecosystem Studies
> > Wageningen UR
> > P.O.Box 57, 1780AB Den Helder
> > The Netherlands
> > dolfi.debrot at wur.nl
> > www.imares.wur.nl
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-
> > bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Melanie McField
> > Sent: Friday, January 21, 2011 10:13 PM
> > To: Todd Barber
> > Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > Subject: Re: [Coral-List] mutton snapper eats lionfish in Roatan
> >
> > Todd et al,
> >
> >  I guess I could have given more background. We have been getting many
> > reports over the last six months (or more) of lionfish being eaten by
> > groupers and morays from many different locations (after being speared
> > and with no apparent effect on the fish that ate it). This snapper
> > stayed with us for another 15-20mins and appeared fine.  Many of these
> > fish that have been eating the lionfish are known residents to the dive
> > guides and they are apparently still out on their reef after
> > weeks/months of eating lionfish (from reports we have received - and
> > yes it's all anecdotal). But this was the first time a mutton snapper
> > is known to eat one. So now we know its possible and for a not so large
> > one. So I think his gives some hope.  I think that if the local
> > predators can come to think of lionfish as potential food, then they
> > can figure out how to eat them live... the lionfish are sitting out in
> > the open and are unafraid.  Anyway, the groupers and snappers of the
> > Indopacific seem to han
> >  dle their consumption - so to me it seems worth testing the
> > feasibility. I suppose it is meddling with nature but so was their
> > (accidental) introduction in the Caribbean. There just aren't enough
> > human hunters to keep populations in check - the fish need to learn to
> > prey upon them too.. The Cayman teams report that 'training' them to
> > eat speared fish has lead to some predation on live lionfish. Maybe
> > someone in
> > Cayman can get lucky and video that one!    Anyway, this is all just my
> > opinion - I think the jury is still out.
> >
> > Melanie
> > On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Todd Barber <reefball at reefball.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Dear Melanie,
> > >
> > > It is not a good idea to feed local fish speared lionfish.  First and
> > > foremost, you have no idea if the fish that eats the lionfish is
> > going
> > > to catch a barb internally and end up dieing from the toxic reaction
> > > at a later point.  Secondly, teaching any wild animal to follow
> > > spearfishermen to obtain a meal is asking for future trouble (both to
> > > humans and for the wild fish that becomes dependent on humans for
> > > food).
> > >
> > > A much better practice is to remove the spines (with surgical snips)
> > > and carry the lionfish  back out of the water.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Todd R Barber
> > > Chairman, Reef Ball Foundation
> > > 3305 Edwards Court
> > > Greenville, NC 27858
> > > 252-353-9094 (Direct)
> > > 941-720-7549 (Cell & Goggle Voice)
> > > toddbarber Skype
> > >
> > > www,reefball.org (Reef Ball Foundation) www.artificialreefs.org
> > > (Designed Artificial Reefs) www.reefbeach.com (Reefs for Beach
> > > Erosion) www.eternalreefs.com (Memorial Reefs) www.reefball.com (Reef
> > > Ball Foundation)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Melanie McField
> > > <mcfield at healthyreefs.org> wrote:
> > > >  Dear Colleagues,
> > > >
> > > > Last week I had an amazing dive in Roatan during which a nassau
> > > > grouper
> > > and
> > > > mutton snapper closely followed our fearless lionfish hunter - and
> > > > the mutton snapper actually ended up eating the lionfish (after it
> > > > was
> > > speared
> > > > and offered).  I think this record will increase the number of
> > > > species
> > > that
> > > > are confirmed to consume it.  The video is on Youtube and our new
> > > facebook
> > > > site and will soon be on our website (www.healthyreefs.org).  Feel
> > > > free
> > > to
> > > > use the video as needed. The summary information is detailed below
> > > > the links.
> > > >
> > > > See the video at:
> > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3oGVWvt7E0
> > > >
> > > > We also have it on on facebook and are starting a new suite of
> > > > activities
> > > on
> > > > facebook... so 'friend' us to keep informed about marine
> > > > conservation throughout the MAR.
> > > >
> > > > This is the link
> > > >
> > >
> > http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=104509826290815&saved#!/vide<http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=104509826290815&saved#%21/vide>
> > > o/video.php?v=104509826290815&comments
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Mutton Snapper recorded eating a lionfish
> > > >
> > > > January 12, 2011 West End Wall, Roatan, Honduras
> > > >
> > > > Location:  16.26905 N   86.60288 W    Depth: 80 ft
> > > >
> > > > In the linked video you can see licensed lionfish hunter and
> > Healthy
> > > Reefs
> > > > Coordinator in Honduras, Ian Drysdale, feed  a  speared (and dead)
> > > lionfish
> > > > to a mutton snapper, as an interested nassau grouper looks on.  The
> > > > video was taken by Melanie McField, Director of the Healthy Reefs
> > Initiate.
> > > Still
> > > > photos were taken by Marisol Rueda, Healthy Reefs Coordinator in
> > Mexico...
> > > >  The
> > > > incident occurred about 15 minutes into the dive. The Nassau
> > grouper
> > >  began
> > > > following Ian about 5-10 minutes into the dive and the mutton
> > > > snapper
> > > joined
> > > > along shortly after. Both fish seemed particularly interested in
> > > following
> > > > Ian and watching the spear keenly.  Spearfishing is banned in HN
> > and
> > > > the fish show no fear of the spear or the divers in general.  In
> > > > response to
> > > the
> > > > lionfish problem authorities are allowing managers like the Roatan
> > > > Marine Park to license certain trained individuals to use special
> > > > lionfish
> > > spears
> > > > to remove lionfish from the reef inside and outside the Roatan
> > > > marine
> > > park.
> > > >  Both fish were approximately 30-40cm length. Dive guides from
> > > > Roatan
> > > also
> > > > report that the following species have been seen consuming speared
> > > lionfish:
> > > > groupers (several species), snappers (including mutton and
> > > > yellowtail) spotted and green morays, and grey reef sharks.  Some
> > > > plan to attempt to train the fish to consume live lionfish, as has
> > > > been reported from
> > > Cayman.
> > > > --
> > > > Melanie McField, PhD
> > > > Director, Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative, Smithsonian
> > > > Institution
> > > > 1755 Coney Dr, Belize City, Belize, Central America
> > > > tel 501-223-4898   cell 501-610-4899
> > > > email: mcfield at healthyreefs.org  www.healthyreefs.org
> > > >
> > > > Join the International Society for Reef Studies www.fit.edu/isrs/
> > >  > _______________________________________________
> > > > Coral-List mailing list
> > > > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > > > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Melanie McField, PhD
> > Director, Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative, Smithsonian
> > Institution
> > 1755 Coney Dr, Belize City, Belize, Central America
> > tel 501-223-4898   cell 501-610-4899
> > email: mcfield at healthyreefs.org  www.healthyreefs.org
> >
> > Join the International Society for Reef Studies www.fit.edu/isrs/
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
_______________________________________________
Coral-List mailing list
Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list