Lionfish... threat, menace, or just something new to amuse you while diving ?

[Damselfish]

Seems to me that animals in general, even if not too smart, rise a bit above that when it comes to finding food. There's lots of cases where fish have changed their behavior when it comes to food. So maybe they will learn.

 

[TSandM]

The one thing I'll address is the concept of introducing a predator. When I was in college, I knew a fellow who finished his degree in invertebrate zoology. He was hired by the State of California to consider the importation of a predator snail to help control the brown snail (which is not native to the state, and is an important crop pest). His conclusion was that there was no way to ensure that the predator snail would confine its attentions to the brown snail, and the result of importing it might be a worsening decline in the populations of the native snail species.

It's the law of unintended consequences. We usually don't know enough about ecosystems to be successful tampering with them.

 

[Scuba Laura]

Follow the link to see how they are training groupers to eat lionfish....

YouTube - Teaching grouper to eat lionfish.AVI

 

[CODMAN]

That has happen many times when humans introduced predators to kill pests or introduced species... It is a REAL risk and the best reason NOT to import natural predators of the lionfish...

The one thing I'll address is the concept of introducing a predator. When I was in college, I knew a fellow who finished his degree in invertebrate zoology. He was hired by the State of California to consider the importation of a predator snail to help control the brown snail (which is not native to the state, and is an important crop pest). His conclusion was that there was no way to ensure that the predator snail would confine its attentions to the brown snail, and the result of importing it might be a worsening decline in the populations of the native snail species.

It's the law of unintended consequences. We usually don't know enough about ecosystems to be successful tampering with them.

 

[Crush]

The one thing I'll address is the concept of introducing a predator. When I was in college, I knew a fellow who finished his degree in invertebrate zoology. He was hired by the State of California to consider the importation of a predator snail to help control the brown snail (which is not native to the state, and is an important crop pest). His conclusion was that there was no way to ensure that the predator snail would confine its attentions to the brown snail, and the result of importing it might be a worsening decline in the populations of the native snail species.

It's the law of unintended consequences. We usually don't know enough about ecosystems to be successful tampering with them.

Ask any Australian about introducing new species...

 

[diver 85]

That's exactly the point! It's impossible to kill them all! Thus won't work... It's simple... :cool2:

that's why I said whenever possible-------it's simple....

 

[jd950]

I am having trouble with the idea that feeding dead lionfish (whole or cut up) to groupers and eels will teach them to prey on live lionfish. It seems more likely to me that they will "learn" to associate divers with food and perhaps to recognize dead lionfish as edible. Since many fish and eels will eat almost anything that floats by and looks like food anyway, including hot dogs, bread and other "non-native" food items that get offered to them, it hardly sems to be a scientific marvel that they will eat a dead fish you hand to them or drop in front of their face.

I worry that divers feeding eels and groupers will make the groupers easier to kill for humans who are so inlcined, whether legally or otherwise, and result in overly enthusiastic eels harassing dive tourists for food, potentially leading to the death of the eel at the hands of humans who are not entertained by this behavior.

For those supporting the "feed them to the eels" idea, I think you would need to find a way to get the eels and groupers to eat live lionfish in a way that does not cause the fish to identify divers as the source of this meal. Good luck.

I am not a marine biologist, so maybe I am wrong in my assumptions. Perhaps a qualified individual will add their thoughts.

 

[DocVikingo]

The one thing I'll address is the concept of introducing a predator.... It's the law of unintended consequences. We usually don't know enough about ecosystems to be successful tampering with them.

Indeed such efforts have only a modest track record. Here’s a piece by Heikki Hokkanena appearing in the Encyclopedia of Pest Management, Edited by David Pimentel, CRC Press 2002.

“Abstract

Biological control of pests has been actively practiced for the control of pests, weeds, and plant diseases for more than 100 years, and it has had some 150 spectacular successes, which in economic terms have been just as impressive as in ecological terms: the calculated return for investment is 32:1, while for other control methods the ratio is around 2.5:1. However, the obtained successes are only the tip of the iceberg of all the work carried out in the field. To date, more than 6000 introductions of alien natural enemies have been carried out, worldwide. It is estimated that only about 35% of all introduced biocontrol agents have become ecologically established in the target ecosystem, and only 60% of these have provided any economic or biocontrol success. Of all the individual biocontrol projects, only 16% have resulted in complete control of the target pest. A major ecological and economic challenge is to improve the ratio of successes in biological control, while retaining the excellent safety record of this approach to pest control.”

And in the process there have been some unfortunate unintended consequences, e.g:

- the cane toad intentionally introduced to Australia to control the cane beetle

- a weevil from Eurasia released in the western U.S to control Canada thistle

- arthropods introduced in South Africa to control water hyacinth

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[DocVikingo]

Here's a thoughtful piece:

Is the Lionfish Really a Threat?: Undercurrent 10/2010

Regards,

DocVikingo

 

[The Chairman]

There's at least that much thought in this thread, and a lot more insight.

• There are not enough humans hunting them over a broad enough area for us to make an impact.
• Feeding "pieces" of lionfish may only teach the fish to look for a handout from us.
• The best solution so far is to label them better than Viagra and let commerce take it's toll. They only problem with that is that this would affect Pacific populations even more.

So, we have no solution to this problem yet. I have to admit that it's fun to try to be a part of the solution!

The Liontamer​