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Feds Seek Comment on Lionfish Plan
BY LYNDA LOHR — DECEMBER 24, 2014
Six years after the invasive lionfish was bydiscovered in St. Croix waters – the first sighting in the Virgin Islands – the federal government has come up with a draft National Invasive Lionfish Prevention and Management Plan to deal with the problem.
The Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force wants comment from the public by Jan. 26.
Since 2008, thousands of lionfish have been killed across the territory.
The Prevention and Management Plan sums up the problem.
It indicates that during the course of their nearly three-decade invasion, lionfish have demonstrated how challenging it can be to control a marine invasive species once it becomes established. While numerous freshwater systems in the United States have experienced invasive fishes, never before has there been a large-scale finfish invasion recorded in the waters of the Southeast Atlantic Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
As a result, few coastal governing bodies have rules or regulations that address recreational or commercial harvest of non-native marine fishes. According to the plan, many existing regulations governing all marine fish may provide obstacles to the removal of invasive species. In the United States, lionfish are found in federal, state, and county marine waters as well as in estuary systems. Additional restrictions on removals can also be applied relative to endangered, threatened, or otherwise protected species.
States and U.S. territories in the invaded range cite a lack of dedicated funding and personnel as the primary hurdle in their management of lionfish invasion, the plan indicates.
No one could be reached locally for on Christmas Eve, but the federal management plan indicates the territory is already on the job. In 2009, the Lionfish Response Plan for the Virgin Islands was developed.
Since the development of this response plan in 2009, the lionfish invasion in the territorial waters went from occasional sightings of individual fish to numerous sightings of multiple fish from a variety of habitats and depth ranges. This rapid change in the abundance and distribution of the invasion prompted the Planning and Natural Resources Department and the Nature Conservancy to update and revise the response plan in February 2014 with specific strategies for education and outreach, removal, research and monitoring, marketing and communications.
The plan outlines approaches for decision makers, marine managers, researchers, fishers, divers, and educators to implement in an effort to control the worst effects of the invasion. It also outlines some of the current research and management actions taking place in the Virgin Islands.
The federal management plan has multiple goals that begin with preventing the spread of invasive lionfish. The top priority is 100 percent prevention of new populations in high priority areas.
Second, the plan seeks to coordinate early detection and rapid response when lionfish are sighted.
The third goal is control and management of invasive lionfish, including developing tools for localized control and management and reducing lionfish densities in high priority sites. It also includes identifying and addressing current regulatory hurdles and tools and building partnerships between federal and state agencies.
The final goal is to assess the impact of the lionfish invasion.
The federal plan can be seen here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/12/12/2014-29199/national-invasive-lionfish-prevention-and-management-plan
Comments on the federal plan can be sent by email to Susan.Pasko@noaa.gov or by regular mail to Susan Pasko, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 1315 East West Highway, SSMC 3, Room 15719, Silver Spring, MD 20910.
Posted : December 25, 2014 10:00 am
Face the facts - it's too late to do anything about it.
They are here and they are not going away and there is no way that anyone is going to control the spread of the population.
Posted : December 25, 2014 10:10 am
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It doesn't mean you have to give up the efforts to reduce their numbers. If we don't continue, they will become the only fish in our waters.
Posted : December 25, 2014 10:47 am
They aren't the only fish in the Pacific waters. Why would it happen here and not there?
Nature will strike a balance. The pot fishermen do more to destroy our fish populations than a lion fish does. I have yet to see ANY efforts by local fishermen (the ones that sell at the markets and on the sides of the roads) in participating in lion fish control. I've never even seen one for sale at the market or elsewhere.
Posted : December 25, 2014 2:22 pm
Topic starter
In Pacific waters which is their natural habitat, they have predators to keep them in check. They have no natural predator in our waters. I think it's a certain type of grouper that keeps them in check. I'll look for the link and post it. Nature can't strike a balance when man keeps screwing things up.
See this link: http://lionfish.co/lionfish-faq/
Posted : December 25, 2014 3:32 pm
It is kinda arrogant to think that man, who has been on earth a relatively short period of time, can destroy earth. Earth/nature was here long before us. It will be here long after us. Nature will adapt.
Posted : December 25, 2014 4:20 pm
They are nasty. We see them swallow-up the other native fish in one gulp right in front of us. It's likely impossible to control them once present but can't hurt to try. Could be a whole other sport and attraction. I know some divers have come to STX just to spear Lionfish. We saw them everywhere on the last STX dive trip. Dive master speared most of them but hardly a dent in the population. At least we could hope that regular spearing at the dive sites might help give the native fish some help and relief. They are venomous so care is needed to harvest them for supper so it's not too surprising not to see them for sale at the market yet.
Posted : December 25, 2014 7:02 pm
I have a two step plan guaranteed to reduce or eliminate the lionfish population in our local waters within five years.
Step 1: Publicly declare the lionfish a protected species.
Step 2: Run a public service campaign declaring lionfish to be incredible at increasing men's sexual prowess. Make it the official aphrodisiac of the Caribbean.
Once it becomes known as a risky illegal aphrodisiac with black market street value, my guess is that the lionfish population will be decimated rapidly.
Posted : December 25, 2014 9:25 pm
Crusanron, Not only do they have natural predators in the South Pacific but they have parasites there that we don't have that keep their system fighting them off there fore limiting their grown and reproduction.
We are fighting a losing battle but all we can do will help. At Cane Bay you rarely see any because they are hunted there all of the time. ON the West end there are few at the regular dive sites, but our group of four to five divers go to spots where diving is not normally done. The most we have gotten it a two tank dive was 88. The boat record for this year is over 1500.
Nohstx, you may be on to something there.
Posted : December 25, 2014 10:21 pm
Agreed.
Cruzan what a crappy attitude.
Anyway we have many people on STT fishing and eating them and they're served at a place in Frenchtown. I kill on site and have eaten them. Really pretty easy to de venom them. Need a sharp knife thou - hide is tough.... Or my knives suck lol.
Do I think they will ever be eliminated; no. Their reproductive cycle is too fast for us to keep up and they can be found much deeper than most divers care to journey. For now we must at least try. For those who just snorkel - see if your local dive shop has free lionfish floats, just a cork with a small weight. Drop it down and a spearo or diver will (hopefully) find the fish. They've been known to chill in a spot for a while if there good food. Recently on STT 181 lionfish were killed by 5 divers. So they have an average of 2 million eggs in a lifetime. 181x2,000,000 = 362,000,000 or so lionfish. Not good one bit. Look for the small ones - try to get them before they reach one year and start reproducing... Two years faster than most our other fish. Sigh.
PLEASE report all sightings to core and they'll get someone out there ASAP. They even have GPS tracking now for divers to follow your leads from. http://www.corevi.org
Great work terry, on your hunts!!!
Posted : December 26, 2014 4:46 am
Cruzan what a crappy attitude.
Not an attitude. A fact.
What are the local fishermen, whose livelihood is derived from the (over)fishing that they do, doing to control the lionfish population on STX?
Posted : December 26, 2014 1:00 pm
