Caribbean reefs under attack by predatory lionfish

People across The Caribbean and in nearby areas of North, Central, ans South America are being urged to include the lionfish in their menus. There are some compelling reasons:

by Christopher Pala

NASSAU, The Bahamas, Friday February 28, 2014, IPS  - THE lionfish, with its striking russet and white stripes and huge venomous outrigger fins, wasn't hard to spot under a coral reef in 15 feet of clear water. Nor was it a challenge to spear it.As I approached and brought the point of my Hawaiian sling to within a foot of it, it simply looked back, utterly fearless until I pierced it and brought it back to the surface.

Within a half-hour, we had caught four of these gorgeous one-pound fish, and the fillets made excellent eating that night.

But the arrival of a tasty, abundant and easy-to-shoot fish on the Caribbean's much-depleted coral reefs is anything but good news. A recent scientific paper brought new detail to previous studies, showing that a year after colonising a reef, lionfish reduced the number of native fish by about half.

"They'll eat just about anything they can swallow and almost nothing eats them," said principal author Stephanie Green of Oregon State University. That's why they're so easy to catch, she explained.

However tasty they may be, only a miniscule fraction of the invaders has been removed, while their numbers continue to grow exponentially, reaching densities never seen in the Pacific, their native habitat.

This suggests the lionfish, believed to have been introduced to the Atlantic coast by aquarium lovers in the 1980s, will likely wipe out most Caribbean reef fish in a decade or two, scientists agree. As a result, many corals that depend on herbivore fish will die and eventually turn to rubble, making shorelines more vulnerable to waves just as global warming is lifting sea levels.

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/bahamas_news/1107119.html#ixzz2ur5FWH6c