Nature Takes its Course

[CuracaoJ]

Nature may find a balance for this problem before we suffer substantial harm to our Caribbean reef system, but at this point it doesn't seem likely. I'm a member of a dive team that does Lionfish hunting many times per week (LET). Last September we were averaging 18 fish per diver per dive here in Curacao, now that number is over 32! Just last week Bonaire released its annual reef study that said 10% of its reef is either dead or dying vs. last year! They sight algae build up as one of the main problems. Lionifsh unfortunately eat fish that do the reef cleaning. There are many proposals floating around the Caribbean on how to deal with the problem. One of the best I have seen is to farm raise groupers and feed them on Lionfish from their youth and then release them into our waters in conjunction with a moratorium on grouper fishing. However, until that or something similar happens the best we can hope for is to keep our popular reefs as cleaned up as we can, with as many experienced divers as we can. Remember every female we get rid of has the ability to produce over 1 million fertilized eggs per year!

[Kitty_Kat]

Is that true in terms of safety? I can see some advantages, but having a live lionfish in a bag near your person, even a 'tough' bag, seems hazardous, more so than spearing it from a distance and swimming off.

Richard.

In 6 months we never had a problem. Same as with anything else... don't be stupid. One person usually got the bag and stayed clear of the others until needed.

[smellzlikefish]

Just to add to Grateful Diver's post:

"We have water in Maryland... perhaps the most beautiful bay in the world. Ever heard of the Chesapeake? We also have a short 2 hour ride to the Atlantic Ocean - ever heard of it?"

In fact I used to live 15 minutes from the Atlantic ocean! I found it be an intriguing real-life science project seeking an answer to the question, "What happens when you remove all the animals?" It started with cod and has since moved on to sharks, bluefin, and many others. Chesapeake Bay is certainly not known for its biological serenity. With oysters now just about gone and blue crabs fighting over the last of the oxygen in the shallows, your beloved Chesapeake Bay is in every text book I've seen as an example of effects of eutrophication.

"Invasive species is a human term. Fish and Animals adapt to their changing environments and have for millions of years. The primary drive in the extinction of animals and fish over the past 200 years is human encroachment. We have overfished the seas and overdeveloped land once ruled by animals. Take a look around the globe. Lionfish have not been the cause."

I wasn't aware of the problems associated with invasive species until I moved away from the east coast, mostly because the invasives in your neck of the woods are, in many cases, so established that the original biota have long since been forgotten. There really are few, quicker ways to damn a native animal to extinction than to establish a non-native one that competes favorably or consumes the natives.

"This current drive against lionfish reminds me of the drive to eradicte sharks after the movie Jaws. Another over-reaction by uneducated humans."

The big difference here is that sharks were there all along, lionfish were not.

[offthewall1]

NW is being his usual troll self and so I'll ignore him at this point.

Smells, I don't know you... but if you knew anything about the bay - it has been hurt over the years ny human encroachment. Most of the hurt has been done by chemical runoff from farmland fertilization and in the upper bay, waste from manufacturing - again caused by humans.

Lionfish have been in the oceans longer than you've been alive. I suspect if they eradiated everything - they would also have eradicated everything in the pacific as well - but evidence suggest they have not.

As for the person who mentioned Curacao... the ABC islands have had a bad blight for a few years now. This is what killed off all the fish. When I was in Bonaire (and Curacao) a couple of years ago - I witnessed morays and some fish species gasping for air... many had lesions. Lesions are not caused by oxygen depletion. They are caused by disease. A biologist we spoke to informed us there was some type of bacteria killing many of the reef fish. Again, the lionfish are not to blame - but have been demonized.

I think that I'm finished on here again for now. My point has been made and the trolls are popping up. Most who are on here so often - like NW - that it is impossible for them to ever be in the water.

I'm in the water 5 - sometimes 6 days a week... all over the world. I hope all of you who care will take the time to enlighten these scubaboard folks...

Peace

[DandyDon]

Let's put this guy in charge of Kudzu and Fire Ant control...!!

[CuracaoJ]

Offthewall1,

I'm not a troll. I'm a DM here in Curacao, and have logged thousands of dives in the 8 years I have been here. We have had blight one of those 8 years. I'm a member of a Lionfish hunting team here in Curacao that works with the government, specifically the LVV and their marine biologists, as well as other biologists that are studying the problem. We are looking at the problem here, culling THOUSANDS of Lionfish per month and checking their stomachs, as well as sharing our data with agencies such as REEF and anyone else that wants it. While I don't disagree with you that in the pacific they are under control, that is because the have predators in the pacific. Here they do not suffer from natural predation. They are a massive threat here in the Caribbean. According to the NOAA we need to cull 27 percent of them per month to level off population growth. According to our best estimates that is 129,000 Lionfish per month for only the leeward side of Curacao. We are no where near those numbers. These things breed like bunnies on Viagra and lay fertilized eggs every 4-5 days! Also according to NOAA studies done in the Caribbean they can reduce biodiversity on a reef by 90 percent in a matter of months. That means less wrasses, triggerfish, clownfish, parrotfish etc. that are part of our cleaning stations to keep algae off the reef.

In thousands of dives here, as well as working with numerous marine biologists I have never seen these lesions that you talk about, nor have I ever heard of a lack of "oxygen" in our waters or disease, and even if I had it wouldn't change the fact that the Lionfish epidemic we are suffering from is both real and very dangerous to our reefs. It is a massively well documented fact. You say they are demonized, but working with the local population, and local divers and dive schools I can assure you that is not true. If anything the very opposite is true.

While you stipulate that they are not dangerous in our waters here in Curacao, the NOAA and every active marine agency on every Caribbean island from the Bahamas to Bonaire disagrees with you. Frankly if we don't do something soon, we won't have a reef to enjoy 10 years from now. That is a very sad prospect. A very sad prospect indeed, and it could use all the attention anyone can give it. We are all afterwords the only, ambassadors of the reef.

Natural predation is the only final solution, but until that happens, I personally will give all divers that cull Lionfish a gold star for their BCD!

Jeff

[NWGratefulDiver]

Lionfish have been in the oceans longer than you've been alive. I suspect if they eradiated everything - they would also have eradicated everything in the pacific as well - but evidence suggest they have not.

What an amazingly ignorant thing to say.

Lionfish have been in the Pacific for millenia ... as have the species that eat them and the species they eat. They've had thousands of years to achieve a natural balance.

Lionfish have been in the Atlantic for a few years ... last time I was in Bonaire was 2009, and I didn't see a single one. Think I'd be able to put in 30+ dives there now without seeing one? What happened in three years ... and how did it happen so fast?

Nature doesn't suddenly create predators and restore ecological niches in three years ... it takes decades at best, and usually centuries for all the interrelated species in a food chain to find a natural balance.

Anybody who thinks otherwise is ignorant of now adaptation works.

As for the triggerfish ... so, if they find a new food source, what's that going to do to the triggerfish population? And how's that going to affect the species that they normally eat? For that matter, how will it affect the species that eat triggerfish?

No single species lives in isolation ... and when a predator finds a new prey, it affects more than just those two species ... ultimately it creates changes in the entire food chain.

That's how nature works ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[smellzlikefish]

"I'm in the water 5 - sometimes 6 days a week... all over the world. I hope all of you who care will take the time to enlighten these scubaboard folks..."

I'm pretty sure you're alone here. I hope your other endeavors are better thought out than your lionfish arguments.

Cheers

[b-dog]

I think people place too much emphasis on predators that eat lionfish. The most important thing is for the small fish to become able to evade the lionfish. I think this will happen because there is variation in fish. When lionfish first came to the Caribbean most of the fish were not alert to the danger of the liofish and as a result were eaten. But there seem to be some fish that were able to evade the lionfish because there are still fish on the reefs in the Caribbean. So those fish that were able to survive will pass on the traits that helped them to evade the lionfish to the next generation and then more of the fish will have the traits necessary for evading lionfish. This is natural selection and it will strongly select for fish that can evade being eaten by lionfish. Right now the Caribbean reef fish are in a bottleneck because the lionfish are new and many of the Caribbean reef fish did not have the traits that allowed them to evade the lionfish but there *are* some fish that we able to evade the lionfish and reproduce and their young will also have the same traits. Luckily bottleneck evolution is very fast and I can believe that in a short time the Caribbean reef fish will have traits to allow them to evade the lionfish. When the average Caribbean reef fish has these traits then the lionfish numbers will be reduced as there will be less food available for them.

[drrich2]

Thing is, that natural selection process may involve some species being eliminated before they adapt. A new balance in nature will be established, true, but it may not have all the same players, and that can have serious consequences.

Richard.