Lionfish in Cozumel

[jayjoans]

I would prohibit all spear guns or other "shooting" type of weapons, but a Hawaiian sling or a tipped spear is about as safe as you can get, and everything you need. The lionfish darn near wait for you to kill them, it's not as if they're difficult to hit. It would be fairly easy for a DM to determine after the first dive whether or not you're qualified to carry a spear or a sling.

There is money to be made here, I would pay to rent a collapsible sling from my op, and I would pay a few bucks a day to get a "license" from the park to hunt lionfish. If they can use my few bucks to fund a larger scale response to the invasion, all the better.

I've dived Cozumel enough to have seen the majority of what is there to see, I'm looking for something more to do when I dive. Hunting lionfish while helping the reef survive would be something that would bring me back to Coz many more times.

 

[CZMDM]

I would prohibit all spear guns or other "shooting" type of weapons, but a Hawaiian sling or a tipped spear is about as safe as you can get, and everything you need. The lionfish darn near wait for you to kill them, it's not as if they're difficult to hit. It would be fairly easy for a DM to determine after the first dive whether or not you're qualified to carry a spear or a sling.

There is money to be made here, I would pay to rent a collapsible sling from my op, and I would pay a few bucks a day to get a "license" from the park to hunt lionfish. If they can use my few bucks to fund a larger scale response to the invasion, all the better.

I've dived Cozumel enough to have seen the majority of what is there to see, I'm looking for something more to do when I dive. Hunting lionfish while helping the reef survive would be something that would bring me back to Coz many more times.

I disagree with you about the slings, but that is just a matter of opinion. How many time have people banged into you while diving? What if they banged into you with a sling? If you are really interested in spearfishing....we take people spearfishing, but not in the park and only on a private basis (not trying to plug for work, but several people here do this). Hunting in the park would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Aside from all the negative posts I read here, my experience is that most of the time when divers see a lionfish they are delighted (I am just sayin'...I am not making a statement of my views). Also the divers expect to have a great dive and see the reef and it's inhabitants. They don't pay us to have our own little private hunt, while they watch.

Once again and I know it's not PC.....IMHO there is no way to control the lionfish population by hunting them. It may be fun and exciting to spearfish, but when you are dealing with an animal that can lay upwards of 20,000 eggs every three days you are deluding yourself that you are going to eliminate these animals in this fashion. The majority of the reefs with divers are mostly in a semi-straight line of reefs that are about 17 miles long and only a few dozen yards wide. The island has over 80 miles of shore line and a couple of hundred of square miles for the lionfish to mate in. It's like the vine Kudzu...once it gets a foothold it's over.

 

[jayjoans]

Mike- I get it, I know that arming rec divers with slings and spears is not going to stop the invasion. My thought is that there is some money to be made to finance some sort of response, which might be better than nothing. In the meantime, divers that obviously have love for the reefs can feel as if they are contributing rather than just watching the lionfish take over. It sounds as if you're resigned to them taking over, which unfortunately is probably going to be the case no matter what is done.

As for the spears, I suppose I may be in a different situation, as I ONLY visit Coz with my regular dive buddies, a group of 5 or 6. We are usually in our own group and rarely, if ever, bump into each other due to lack of control. I'd trust every one of them with a spear or sling diving with me. I might feel differently in group of unknown divers, which you likely see regularly.

If divers you're with are delighted to see a lionfish, I think you need to add a bit more to your pre-dive briefings. They are pretty to look at for a minute, just before they are run through.

 

[CZMDM]

jayjoans you kind of hurt my feelings a little with the "adding a bit more to my briefing" jab. I do expalin the situation with the lionfish. Everyone knows they are not indiginous. I cannot control the emotions of other people. I was just pointing out that a lot of people really don't care or are just resigned to the fact for whatever reason.

You are right I am resigned that if we rely soley on hunting them to eradicate them the war is already lost. It would be very easy for me to thump my chest, scream about the injustice of the lionfish in the Caribbean and wait for everybody to give me an "attaboy", but I would rather speak truthfully about my perception of this problem. Doing so has been a great bane in my web inter-actions.

Tourists spearfishing in the park......there is hardly one day of diving where I don't see some idiot photographer walking on, laying on or grabbing the reef just to get a picture. God only knows what these people would do if they were allowed to hunt in the park. Lionfish remain very close to the reef. I can just see 4-6 divers climbing all over themselves and the reef for a chance to shoot a lionfish.

 

[jayjoans]

Mike- sorry about your tender feelings..

As with anything, not everybody should be given a pointy weapon. In some cases, I've wondered why some adults are allowed to use forks at dinner. I don't doubt that as a DM you witness bad behavior and lack of skill more than most of us, but that shouldn't preclude those that are responsible from helping out, and in turn generating some cash. I know that the op I use has very responsible DM's that could easily determine whether or not someone is qualified to handle a spear at depth, but I could see where it could get sticky having a DM tell a gung-ho customer that he/she is too dangerous to have one. No doubt some ops would give a spear to anybody that showed up with dinero, exacerbating the problem.

Do you know of any other means right now to slow their invasion? (an honest question, I don't know of anything else) Hunting is all I've heard of, so considering that there are many willing hunters and plenty of prey, it seems that maybe we should be doing what we can to generate a fund to finance whatever works better.

Our favorite DM has bagged well over 100 of them, using your math, saving over 2 MILLION lionfish eggs from being laid EVERY 3 DAYS. (ok, ok, they weren't all females I'm sure, but you get the idea) I have to think that made some sort of difference, however minute, and continuing to roll the boulder up hill seems better than doing nothing.

 

[CZMDM]

jayjoans I lived in the South when the Kudzu invaded the forests. I live on an island that used to have hundreds of flocks of parrots that were devastated by non-indiginous Boa's. You don't have to be any kind of biological expert to see that once nature takes off it is unstoppable. When this thread was started I was seeing lionfish every now and then. Yesterday I saw at least 9 of them. There is no doubt in my mind that by the winter they will be all over. It's like when a hurricane comes....I hate it, it screws my life up, I can take all the precautions possible, but the one thing I cannot do is stop the thing from coming.

My feelings about groups of divers entering the park with spearguns or spears or slings.......I just totally disagree with you about this for safety reasons already stated, plus I think it would make the poaching problem even worse as it would give anyone in the park an excuse to have a hunting device while diving.

I appreciate your concern for the local environment and the island in particular. However based on my experience with nature and watching the lionfish population grow at a surprisingly rapid rate I remain convinced (but not happy) that these animals are here to stay.

 

[jayjoans]

Mike- is it your opinion then that reef diving in Cozumel is done? Will there be nothing left to see other than legions of lionfish a year from now? I suppose I should be happy that I saw the reefs pre-Wilma, seems they will never again be in that condition.

What a complete and utter tragedy. How will the island and it's fragile economy survive? I suppose their goal to accommodate the largest cruise ships is a good one, if divers stop coming to the island it seems all they'll have is day trippers heading to Carlos and Charlies and to the Hard Rock for a t-shirt.

 

[ggunn]

I suppose I should be happy that I saw the reefs pre-Wilma, seems they will never again be in that condition.

Although you may have been being sarcastic, there's a lot of truth in that statement. The reefs at Cozumel won't again look like they did before Wilma in any of our lifetimes. That's not to say that they aren't a great place to dive, just that some aspects of their pre-Wilma appearance were due to hundreds, maybe thousands of years of not having a hurricane incident like Wilma's hit.

 

[jayjoans]

Gordon- unfortunately, this may be one of the few times I wasn't being sarcastic. I really am concerned about the future, it's one thing to listen to US residents speculate about what's happening to Cozumel, it's another to read the writings and opinions of someone that lives there and dives every day.

I am happy to have seen them pre-Wilma, they haven't been the same since, but still wonderful. As far as I know, we haven't seen a decimated reef system recover from the lionfish yet.

 

[CZMDM]

I honestly don't know how my disagreeing with you over the hunting of lionfish turned into you putting "the reef is done" as my statement. I never said anything remotely like that. I find your posts thoughtful and intelligent, but please don't put words in my mouth.

If there is a way of stopping them (and I hope there is)....great. I just don't think it can be accomplished by hunting. To me the Marine Park is a true treasure and I would hate the idea of seeing dozens of armed divers swimming around.

On the other hand, if they can't be stopped I don't think it will be the end of the world or great diving. I guess that is one of the things I do not get....even if there are lionfish how does that completly destroy what Cozumel has to offer in the way of diving? The lionfish are in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cayman and probably Cuba, if they continue this pattern they will be throughout the Caribbean in a couple of years. Are you going to just stop diving altogether because of the lionfish?

Legions of lionfish? I would think that nature would balance itself out. If the reef was only lionfish how would they eat? I have friends who just went to the Bahamas and they described the lionfish as common, but not like they were over-whelming. I don't think that Cozumel is in a situation where it's all or nothing because of one species of fish.

Per hurricanes: Prior to Gilbert (1988) I thought that the Yucab was one of the most beautiful shallow reefs ever. Gilbert whacked it very much like Wilma did in 2005. Gilbert was in 1988 and by 96-98 the reef had recovered to where I would call it very close to pre-Gilbert. I see the Yucab rebounding now, but the start of new growth seemed to take a long time. I think the reef is improving now in a way that can be seen if you dive it often.