Lionfish being fed to other fish

[tselios]

We were in Bonaire and our Divemaster was killing the Lionfish and feeding them to other fish.

Lionfish being fed to fish - YouTube

Quality is not the greatest but you get the idea.

 

[simskiscuba]

Interesting that those fish would mess with the deceased lionfish. I've heard stories of Groupers being trained to eat lionfish...... ????
Cool vid. Thanks!

 

[tselios]

Thanks. We saw Lionfish on every dive. On one of those dives, the divemaster was feeding the fish and a big green eel came out of his
hole and just devoured the Lionfish. It was amazing. I'm still new at the underwater camera thing, but I would have loved to get that on film.
They need to let good trained divers use the tool (elf I think) to help irradicate those fish. I would definitely train and then buy or rent the ELF and help out the best I could.

 

[Mike]

We were in Bonaire and our Divemaster was killing the Lionfish and feeding them to other fish.

Lionfish being fed to fish - YouTube

Quality is not the greatest but you get the idea.

Help promote a healthy diving environment and kindly ask your dive masters when they kill lionfish to just leave the dead lion fish for fish to find instead of feeding fish. Dive masters should know better then to feed fish, but often the 'show' is too hard for them to resist.

All over the Caribbean there are reports of marine life with changed behavior due to lion fish feeding. Morays that range from unnaturally inquisitive to down right aggressive behavior, groupers, jacks, etc... following divers on dives...etc...

Dive masters should be killing lion fish but just not feeding them to other marine life, dump them and let the marine life find them on their own.

 

[Brendon]

We feed them to eels after removing the spines all the time... They don't seem very interested in the fish while the spines are on... Go figure. I do agree that by feeding them they tend to be more interested in divers... Seems like sometimes their waiting for a hand out. Just yesterday I saw one with a sign that said "will work for food".

 

[SDiverJim]

As Mike said. I think we will train some fish and Eels that we supply food if we hand feed them. Kill the lion fish and let the creatures find them to eat on their own.

 

[scuba-trini]

I've seen lion fish on the menu at restaurants in Jamaica. The authorities there are promoting fishing and eating lion fish. Good way to help the local marine life as well as offer an alternative food source.

 

[SeaHorse81]

I'd have to think that everybody in the ocean is hungry, and the lionfish bodies will be happily consumed by somebody in short order, even if it's just microbes. Nothing goes to waste.

I'd prefer not to have any sealife associate people with getting fed. Just too many ways for that to go wrong, for all involved.

 

[tselios]

It makes alot of sense to just kill the lionfish and let the fish discover them on there own.
I do remember a baracuda following the divemaster waiting to get a piece. I agree the fish would not go waste on the bottom.
There are enough bottom dwellers that would help eat it.

 

[trrebletide]

even the nurse sharks are getting agressive and literally coming out of the woodwork in Cozumel. I had to keep beating them off me with my fins - over a dozen.. everywhere!
I agree we need to stop feeding the fish.