Lionfish in Cozumel

[deborahdelamar]

The species in the Red Sea, Pterois miles or devil firefish, is naturally occurring -- not an introduced, exotic species. It has natural predators there, specifically the coronetfish and (a widely held but unproven belief) sharks. Not so for the Red Lionfish, Pterios volitans, we see here, which are an Indo-Pacific species without natural predators in the Atlantic or Caribbean. (No one is depending on groupers for control since they show no preference for lionfish -- some have been seen spitting them out -- and especially since the lionfish here are eating juvenile groupers.) Unfortunately, the Red Sea fish or their egg masses have made it through the Suez Canal and devil firefish are becoming established in the Med where it has no natural predators.

 

[scubawife]

About once a week he makes a run and drop them off at the marine park. This one made # 87.

He's turned into quite the lionfish hunting machine. :cool2:

 

[PARADISE HUNTER]

Marg,

If the park/gov't. would come up with a bounty system it would be profitable for the DM's to catch them. Jeremy stopped by the house a couple of days ago to visit and had one in a bucket he was taking home to his aquarium.

About once a week he makes a run and drop them off at the marine park. This one made # 87.

I was with him when he caught two on the same small coral island in the sand. He's got an interesting method of catching them between two small nets. They were both juveniles.

Earlier in Playa I found one deep in a swim through that was the size of a football. Amazing looking fish, but devasting to the local ecology.

 

[mrputtputt]

I got back from Cancun/Cozumel 2 Fridays ago. there was none in Cozumel or Cancun. But there was a LOT in Isla Mujeres (north part where Enrique's Unique Diving adventures took me). It's almost like spending 40% of our dive time capturing them. He got 2 but we saw like 10-12 of them.

 

[MMM]

Sorry for just now replying. I somehow missed this thread.

It's the same as Maracaibo Shallows. I've seen it called both on different dive maps. I think our DM called it fingers that day if I remember correctly. It was all one big decompression dive after doing the wall. The coral was in extremely great shape, and we saw a lot of smaller life, turtles, a young nurse shark etc...

There was something that looked like cobwebs on a lot of the coral that I hadn't seen in such abundance before. Our DM told us it's because of spawning. Coral spooge? Ewwww! :shocked2:

I don't remember the max depth but most of the dive was around 20-25 feet and we spent more than an hour offing nitrogen from our first dive while looking at the healthiest reef I've seen since Wilma. I highly recommend it!

You probably weren't at Shallows. It's not a wall dive and is about 55 or 60 feet, more or less. You were probably at Maracaibo. It's a very deep wall. And beautiful.

 

[1KWIK_69]

You probably weren't at Shallows. It's not a wall dive and is about 55 or 60 feet, more or less. You were probably at Maracaibo. It's a very deep wall. And beautiful.

I think you misunderstood. We did two dives. The first was on Maracaibo wall. After that we had a very short boat ride inland. Without much of a surface interval we did our second dive on what they called Maracaibo Fingers. The second dive was all very shallow but the coral was fantastic!

Here's a link to the Cozumel Dive Map that lists it as Maracaibo Fingers.

http://cozumeldivemap.com/

 

[deborahdelamar]

This post is marketplace but I think posting here may be OK. REEF is offering this t-shirt for $20 at the REEF store: REEF Gear | Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF)

 

[CoyKoi]

I am headed to Cozumel on Saturday (12/5), joining about 18 other volunteer divers from REEF to conduct our annual fish survey. Although most of us have not been trained on how to capture the critters, you can bet we will be actively looking for these guys and reporting them to our DMs and trip leaders -- who will be catching them.

I'll post a trip report and survey sightings as often as I can on the trip and certainly afterward.

 

[Mike]

Is there still a lot of 'capturing' going on? The 2 different dive masters we dove with all killed them where they found them. One with what looked like a collapsible Hawaiian sling or maybe it was a smaller version of it (I didn't pay much attention to any of what they were doing the 3-4 times DMs found them), and the other with one with one of those 12" metal reef sticks for holding yourself on the reef in the current, I guess he just stuck them or beat them on the head from what another diver told me.

 

[geokr]

I am headed to Cozumel on Saturday (12/5), joining about 18 other volunteer divers from REEF to conduct our annual fish survey. Although most of us have not been trained on how to capture the critters, you can bet we will be actively looking for these guys and reporting them to our DMs and trip leaders -- who will be catching them.

I'll post a trip report and survey sightings as often as I can on the trip and certainly afterward.

I couldn't find this trip posted on the REEF site - got a link or any particulars?