March 2010    Download the Entire Issue (PDF)

Vol. 25, No. 3   What's this?

Join The Hunt For Lionfish

from the March, 2010 issue of Undercurrent  

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There is one new push by Caribbean dive operators that we heartily endorse: lionfish hunting. Many dive outfits are enlisting their customers to help them track down the nonnative reef destroyers.

Lionfish, accidentally dumped into Miami’s waters back in 1992, are now abundant along the southeastern Atlantic coast, Bahamas and Caymans. Salomon Singer (Panama City, Panama) went diving in January with Stuart’s Cove Dive Bahamas and told us, “I don’t recall seeing less than three on each dive and on at least one dive, I saw well over ten.” Two other readers tell us they saw them during January dives in Curacao. The distance between Miami and Curacao is 1,190 miles, so lionfish have traveled an average of 66 miles every year southward – and there’s no stopping them. While lionfish “wranglers” may keep them out of marine parks, the majority of islands’ coastlines are not dived so there’s no way to round up all lionfish. ...