it’s likely that the invasion started
sometime in the mid-1980s that’s when
the first reported sighting was a blind
fish just north of Miami you have an
animal that once it invades and really
increase in population numbers very
rapidly well life is really are sort of
the perfect storm I think in many ways
this basis species goes they have a lot
of characteristics which make them very
successful in the invaded range they
reproduce very early in life so they
reach maturity they grow very rapidly
that are capable of dispersing large
distances during their egg and marble
phase which ride ocean currents a
species that has venomous spines they
don’t seem to have any native predators
or predators in their invaded range here
so it’s possible that because they’re so
armored with the venomous bonds that
they don’t have a lot of natural
predators which would leave them as
basically not to worry about in general
one of the major impacts that we’re
going to find from this is essentially
the fact that they’re eating a whole
variety of our native species for one
they’re removing prey that would have
been available for many of our native
fish dogs like snapper and grouper that
are feeding on similar small bodied reef
fishes they’re also certainly having a
direct predatory impact on many of those
small reef fishes and while we don’t
fish for those species those species
perform important ecological services on
three
you
very little is known about my fish
biology ecology our research program
online fish here in northeastern Florida
is trying to characterize a lot of the
life history traits of lionfish so we’re
looking at things like how fast do they
grow how many times do they reproduce
how many eggs do they produce most of
the fish that we get for our work is
actually through collaborations with
local fishermen many of those folks are
very interested obviously in what’s
going on with their ecosystem supports
their livelihood and so they’re very
eager to help for our part we get to get
samples from a huge geographic area that
would cost us thousands of dollars to
run our own research program I think the
best chance we have to mitigate some of
the impacts of lionfish is to encourage
fishery removals whether that’s through
recreational spear fishermen or whether
that’s through the development of a
commercial line fish fishery whether
that be through traps or spear fishing
or any of these other gear types but
just get a larger fraction of these fish
out of the water I think right now the
best strategy we have for controlling
the fish is human consumption if we can
increase the amount harvested through a
variety of ways increased demand for the
species in both seafood markets
increases demand in terms of restaurants
to get restaurants to carry it at this
point no one’s talking about eradication
but again if you can have enough effort
mitigate she’d been shown at relatively
small scales that can dent the
population and you can see rebounds in
until the native fish species
you
sometime in the mid-1980s that’s when
the first reported sighting was a blind
fish just north of Miami you have an
animal that once it invades and really
increase in population numbers very
rapidly well life is really are sort of
the perfect storm I think in many ways
this basis species goes they have a lot
of characteristics which make them very
successful in the invaded range they
reproduce very early in life so they
reach maturity they grow very rapidly
that are capable of dispersing large
distances during their egg and marble
phase which ride ocean currents a
species that has venomous spines they
don’t seem to have any native predators
or predators in their invaded range here
so it’s possible that because they’re so
armored with the venomous bonds that
they don’t have a lot of natural
predators which would leave them as
basically not to worry about in general
one of the major impacts that we’re
going to find from this is essentially
the fact that they’re eating a whole
variety of our native species for one
they’re removing prey that would have
been available for many of our native
fish dogs like snapper and grouper that
are feeding on similar small bodied reef
fishes they’re also certainly having a
direct predatory impact on many of those
small reef fishes and while we don’t
fish for those species those species
perform important ecological services on
three
you
very little is known about my fish
biology ecology our research program
online fish here in northeastern Florida
is trying to characterize a lot of the
life history traits of lionfish so we’re
looking at things like how fast do they
grow how many times do they reproduce
how many eggs do they produce most of
the fish that we get for our work is
actually through collaborations with
local fishermen many of those folks are
very interested obviously in what’s
going on with their ecosystem supports
their livelihood and so they’re very
eager to help for our part we get to get
samples from a huge geographic area that
would cost us thousands of dollars to
run our own research program I think the
best chance we have to mitigate some of
the impacts of lionfish is to encourage
fishery removals whether that’s through
recreational spear fishermen or whether
that’s through the development of a
commercial line fish fishery whether
that be through traps or spear fishing
or any of these other gear types but
just get a larger fraction of these fish
out of the water I think right now the
best strategy we have for controlling
the fish is human consumption if we can
increase the amount harvested through a
variety of ways increased demand for the
species in both seafood markets
increases demand in terms of restaurants
to get restaurants to carry it at this
point no one’s talking about eradication
but again if you can have enough effort
mitigate she’d been shown at relatively
small scales that can dent the
population and you can see rebounds in
until the native fish species
you
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