USGS - Invasive Lionfish Now Found From Bahamas To New England - ENS

[hatrack]

GAINSVILLE, Florida, March 15, 2011 (ENS) - The rapid spread of invasive lionfish along the U.S. eastern seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean is the first documented case of a non-native marine fish establishing a self-sustaining population in the region, a U.S. Geological Survey marine expert said today.

"Nothing like this has been seen before in these waters," said Dr. Pam Schofield, a biologist with the USGS Southeast Ecological Science Center in Gainsville.

More than 30 species of non-native marine fishes have been sighted off the coast of Florida alone, but until now none of these have demonstrated the ability to survive, reproduce, and spread successfully.

"We've observed sightings of numerous non-native species, but the extent and speed with which lionfish have spread has been unprecedented," Schofield said. "Lionfishes pretty much blanketed the Caribbean in three short years."

EDIT

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2011/2011-03-15-091.html

[Ian David]

1. Lionfish – roaring good sushi!

Lionfish – roaring good sushi!

Lionfish are a threat to sushi lovers, and to our seafood-loving way of life. But as sushi lovers, we have the unique ability to enjoy some great sushi while helping the situation!

<snip>

They’re spreading fast – even the big bad groupers don’t eat them. But we can, since people have gotten quite good at catching, handling and yes, eating these pests. Their venomous spines cause a lot of pain, so use a speargun if you’re hunting them. Chopsticks if you’re eating them.

<snip>

Unlike fugu, that prized but poisonous sushi delicacy popular in Japan, this fish has no neurotoxins in its fleshy tissue. That means you won’t experience a numbing or tingling sensation, only a good feeling that you’re helping to slow down the invasion. That also means eating the fish, raw or cooked, poses no increased physical danger whatsoever.

Sushi anyone? As far as we can tell from reading there are no issues regarding difficult bacteria, as there are with most shark species, for example. They’re lower on the food chain than the super predators like tuna, and their lives are short, so they accumulate less toxins and heavy metals. In fact, Lionfish should be considered safer and healthier than your average sushi fish!


Clip the dorsal spines of lionfish before removing scales and fileting

More:
http://blog.sushi.pro/2010/09/lionfish-roaring-good-sushi/

Economics of Lionfish Sushi
http://blog.sushi.pro/2010/09/economics-of-lionfish-sushi/

Eat Lionfish, Save The Reefs
http://blogs.menupages.com/southflorida/2008/10/eat_lionfish_save_the_reefs.html

Also:

http://www.lionfishhunter.com/Lionfish%20Recipes.html

[mimitabby]

2. they taste good.

good for us, bad for them.

[Vogon_Glory]

3. The little stinkers are all over the place

I've seen lionfish all over the place in the Bahamas and the eastern Caribbean, the only exceptions being Tobago and Grenada (Why they're missing, I don't know). Caribbean lionfish are a pest fish--Seek, Locate, Exterminate!

[pscot]

5. They look like they'd be

a bear to clean in any quantity.

[Ian David]

4. The Lionfish Is Delicious And it needs to die.

The Lionfish Is Delicious
And it needs to die.

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Two decades later, in the era of coral bleaching and overfishing, eating seafood is no less fraught. But on a recent trip back home for the holidays, the talk in the Keys was all about a fish you can serve without a side order of guilt, a creature that is such a bastard it will make you discard your ethical reservations and gladly assert your place at the pinnacle of the food chain. Coming to a table near you, if local environmentalists have their way: the invasive red lionfish.

Bastard is perhaps a strong word. In its native waters of the South Pacific and Indian Ocean, the lionfish lives in a benign balance with the rest of the food chain. But in the Atlantic and Caribbean, where it has been proliferating madly since the early 1990s, the lionfish has no controlling predators. Not even goliath groupers or sharks have developed a taste for them. A lionfish can begin reproducing in the first year of its life and can spawn more than 2 million eggs a year. From birth, the lionfish eats ravenously, its diet made up of the juveniles of key species that help maintain and promote the equilibrium of the reef—snapper, hogfish, parrotfish, banded coral shrimp. In less than 20 years, the lionfish has established a breathtaking colonial empire that ranges all the way from North Carolina to Brazil. In the last two years in particular, it has become a constant menace in Florida Keys reefs. Comprehensive counts are hard to come by, but one local lobsterman reported to the Keynoter that he found more than 100 of them in his traps in a single week. Based on their explosive reproductive rate, researchers estimate that one-quarter of the fish would have to be killed each month to slow their growth.

Lionfish supposedly first arrived in local waters when an aquarium broke during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and dumped a half-dozen of them into Biscayne Bay. That origin story may be apocryphal, but in a state where escaped pet Burmese pythons may soon outnumber retirees, I'm inclined to believe it. The lionfish, with its calico stripes and gaudy array of fins that fan out like a mane, is prized by aquarists everywhere, but it seems a particularly perfect accessory for hit men and coke dealers, to name two demographics known to own condos on the water in Miami.
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However the lionfish arrived, their presence is putting additional pressure on an ecosystem already fighting for survival. There are plenty of ways to quantify just how seriously the Florida Keys have been overfished, but perhaps my favorite is the 2009 study in Conservation Biology which analyzed old trophy-fish photographs (the kind that Hemingway posed for in Key West). The researcher found that the size of the largest prize fish had decreased by more than half in the last 60 years; average fish weight was down 88 percent.

More:
http://www.slate.com/id/2287760/