LIONFISH

Good article. I am the Education and Outreach Coordinator for C.O.R.E. here on STX. We are all volunteers and not even the president gets a paycheck from the organization. We have a great group of volunteers here on STX. We get a group of divers together at least once a month and go out on a lionfish hunting dive. We concentrate on the West end of the island as that's where we see large numbers of them. C.O.R.E. is in the process of getting permits to dive and extract lionfish from the East End Marine Park area but those permits take time and we have to coordinate with local dive shops to charter their boats. The response boat that C.O.R.E. owns is on STT so the local dive shops are our only source of transportation in getting out to these dive sites to keep the lionfish population in check. All of the dive shops have been great allies in our fight. SCUBA has been wonderful in offering their Scuba Dos boat to us at least once a month for these dives. Of course we couldn't ask them to send a captain and divemaster out with us for free so we do pay them for that charter. They have been wonderful in making that fee very small so we can keep up the fight. The divers that go out each pay a small amount for the dive trip so our volunteers are dedicated in taking money out of their own pocket to help us. We do have a training program for divers or non-divers to get more people trained and certified to be a hunter or spotter on those dives.

I would love to do more here on STX to get more people informed but as I said we are volunteers and many of us have full time jobs and family responsibilities so we do what we can. If anyone you know is interested in becoming a volunteer for C.O.R.E. please send us an email.

stxoutreach@corevi.org
stxdive@corevi.org

Sidenote: I have eaten many many lionfish from the waters off the west end and have not had any ciguatera issues myself.

We would love to get some of our local restaurants to serve this delicious fish and show the people of STX that it is a great alternative to the snapper and other reef fish that are eaten here. As the article states, lionfish has no bigger risk than any of those fish. If there is a demand then local fishermen will go after them. They know the safe areas to fish. The more people demand lionfish, the less lionfish there are on the reefs. That leads to the native species making a comeback as well because those lionfish aren't there to eat those fish and the fishermen are not harvesting as many because of the demand for lionfish. This is a win/win for everyone in the longrun. Native species can start to make a comeback, local fishermen get more money in their pocket for harvesting an invasive species that will always be here. We will never completely rid our waters of the lionfish but we can keep their numbers down to allow our native fish a better chance to thrive.

the keys have contests to see who can catch the most-not exactly sure about prizes. and i am pretty sure they eat them

Thanks for all the additional info, TommySTX. Hope it'll help get you some more volunteer help (and donations) to further the cause!

Thank you for sharing the article OT. It's hard to really reach a lot of people to educate and inform them about the lionfish. I know there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings out there so please, anyone, if you have a question, any question at all about lionfish or C.O.R.E. please ask away.

The reefs and marine biology around the USVI is our top resource in not only feeding many of the people here but attracting tourists to spend some money here as well.

I will come and give a presentation to any group or organization that requests it. I have done dissections with a local high school class, spoken with VI-EPSCOR and helped local high school teachers prepare their own presentation on lionfish. You don't even have to be a club or group. If you have a group of friends that want to learn more and possibly get involved, just let us know. 🙂

Thank you and all the other divers and organizations that donate their time to educate and exterminate.

Before Elena took over The Deep End used to have fried lionfish bites with honey mustard sauce. i don't like seafood but i loved lionfish