Lionfish be Gone!
First of all, please know that Lionfish are NOT harmful to you - just the environment! They do have venomous spines, however, so you don't want to touch them or any other fish for that matter. That being said, we could use your help with the USVI Lionfish Removal Effort!
The Indo-Pacific Lionfish is a beautiful, dramatically colored, striped fish, with a bit of an attitude. It is often stationary, resting against rocks or under coral ledges allowing you to get a close view of it. Unfortunately the Indo-Pacific Lionfish is invasive and harmful to the environment. The Lionfish have been documented eating an average of 85% of the juvenile fish on a reef in a 5-week period. They are also prolific breeders - Lionfish have been observed breeding every month of the year; a single adult female can release over 30,000 eggs as often as every 4 days!
As bleak as this sounds we have discovered a weakness! Once they have settled and there is ample food (our local fish do not know the Lionfish is a predator), and there is no competition with other Lionfish (at current population levels), and there are no predators (except for us), there is no reason for them to move. This allowed us to develop a simple Lionfish Marker that everyone can carry with them while snorkeling or diving. This low tech but highly effective site- marking tool consists of a strip of plastic survey tape with a wine cork at one end and a metal washer at the other. When released, the washer sinks to the bottom while the cork rises creating a visual beacon that is easily seen from all sides of a coral head.
This means that when a Lionfish is spotted, marked and reported, a trained group of collectors can quickly and efficiently remove the Lionfish from the water. We'd like to make every dive, snorkel, and swim a Lionfish "spotting and marking opportunity" with everyone on or in the water carrying one of our Lionfish Markers. With your help searching for Lionfish and supporting the Lionfish Response Program, we can reduce and manage the impact of this invasion. There is a group of divers that do Lionfish dives weekly and Dive Experience does a Lionfish search each month in Buck Island National Park.
What To Do If You See a Lionfish: Mark the location with a cork streamer, take a GPS reading if possible, and report the sighting immediately. Cork streamers are available from the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR) by calling 643-0800. Remember, the Lionfish is not harmful to nor is it interested in you, just the environment!
