Eat lionfish, save the reefs!

From an article by David Rogers in the Palm Beach Daily News:

Residents of Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas have organized the first Lionfish Derby and Tasting, set for June 5-6, to help fight an invasion by the nuisance, exotic species, reef diver and Shore Protection Board member Bobbie Lindsay said.

The derby will award cash to the divers who collect the most lionfish, the largest fish and the smallest fish.

A lionfish tasting in Palm Beach raised funds for the derby's purse and to equip more Bahamian fishermen with the nets and protective gloves needed to capture lionfish.

The events are organized in cooperation with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation in Key Largo, a conservation group that recruits recreational divers to conduct surveys on the size and diversity of fish populations off the coasts of north and central America, the Caribbean and Hawaii. . . .

The situation for native marine life in the Bahamas is "pretty bleak," according to Lad Akins, special projects director for REEF. In waters there, nothing preys on the lionfish, because larger fish and sharks simply do not recognize it as a food source, Akins said. Its venomous barbs are part of the deterrent.

"We may not have seen the wholesale extinctions of fish, but that's a possibility in the future," Akins said.

While lionfish sightings are still relatively rare off the waters of Palm Beach County, reports of a few lionfish in the Bahamas in 2004 turned into an explosion about two years ago, according to Akins.

Stephanie Green, a doctoral student at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said lionfish are becoming one of the most abundant fish of their size in the Bahamas.