Lion Fish: A Tasty Solution

[Rosborne]

This is my latest piece in the Huffington Post. Hope you enjoy it. Comments and observations always welcome. Additional insights also appreciated.

How One Island Found a Clever Way to Solve Its Environmental Crisis | Robert Osborne


Robert

 

[gopbroek]

Nice article, Cozumel is a similar story. As the restaurants have discovered how good Lion Fish tastes and more importantly sells the local population has plummeted. They are still there but on most dives unless you really search for them you are unlikely to see them. A friend who has a restaurant there told me last spring that the market price the fishermen were getting was three times as much as other fish.

 

[Altamira]

A minor (or not) technical issue--lion fish are venemous, not poisonous. It they were poisonous, you would not be able to eat them.

 

[knotical]

How One Island Found a Clever Way to Solve Its Environmental Crisis

“Solve” seems excessively optimistic.

Now the program on Grand Cayman is not without its critics. Some suggest that lionfish still abound in between the sites where they're being hunted and down deep where recreational divers can't go. But I'm not convinced those criticisms have any weight. There's nothing for the lionfish to eat if they're living deep and I just don't think they're smart enough to intentionally avoid areas where periodically they're being hunted. I think they're getting a handle on the problem in Grand Cayman. Washington tells me that on the last hunt -- their 16th -- they took out nearly 900 fish. The good news, "they're getting smaller and smaller" according to Washington. That means the large breeding adults are getting scarce.

“I'm not convinced”
“I just don't think”
and “I think”
Might carry weight if you provided credentials, perhaps in marine biology.

"There's nothing for the lionfish to eat if they're living deep"
Really?! On what to you base that?

 

[Rosborne]

You're right. But in average speak people use the two interchangeably, as in that's a poisonous snake. I try to write in common language. But technically you're right.

---------- Post added September 10th, 2015 at 06:44 PM ----------

It's always an issue--headlines that I don't have any control over. I write one headline and the editors write another. Solve is too strong. A creative start is how I saw it.

 

[Rosborne]

By the way, if anyone is interested, the next Lion Fish Rodeo is on October 17th and 18th in Grand Cayman. You do need a licence to hunt the fish. But they are obtainable.

 

[Phil1111]

Great news. All divers should order lionfish if its on the menu.