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7/5/13 Eating lionfish best way to control them - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
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Home > Sports > Fishing & Outdoors
The best way to stop the spread of the invasive species is by making itcommercially viable
By Steve Waters, Sun Sentinel5:26 p.m. EDT, July 4, 2013
How to control lionfish? Try a knifeand fork
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DANIA BEACH—
— South Floridians better hope that lionfish are soon on the menus at their favorite restaurantsbecause that's about the only way the invasive species can be stopped from obliterating native marinelife.
"We're losing ground, going backwards," said Steve Gittings, the chief scientist for NOAA's NationalMarine Sanctuary Program, of the fight to stop the spread of lionfish.
One of a dozen panelists at a lionfish symposium this pastSaturday at Nova Southeastern University'sOceanographic Center, Gittings said the species is having atransformative impact on coral reefs.
Documented in depths from a couple of feet to 1,000 feet,lionfish are voracious feeders that can consume prey up to halftheir size.
"Lionfish can eat anything that'll fit in their mouths," saidStephanie Green, a lionfish researcher at Oregon StateUniversity.
On reefs where lionfish are plentiful, there has been a 95 percent decline in some native populations.Among their prey are baby yellowtail snapper, hogfish and grouper.
Native to the Indian and southern Pacific oceans, lionfish were first documented off South Florida in
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7/5/13 Eating lionfish best way to control them - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/outdoors/fl-outdoors-lionfish-0705-20130704,0,6569704.story 2/4
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the 1980s, the result of an aquarium owner dumping the fish. Spread by ocean currents, lionfish nowrange from North Carolina to South America and are in the Gulf of Mexico and much of theCaribbean. They're also in Florida Bay, the Loxahatchee River and the Indian River Lagoon.
No one knows exactly how many lionfish there are, but John Hunt, of the Florida Fish and WildlifeConservation Commission's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said, "I'll give you a number:Gazillions."
Making lionfish commercially viable would be the mosteffective way to put a dent in that population.
"If you want to get rid of a species, you develop a fishery for it," said Dave Kerstetter, who runs thefisheries research lab at NSU's Oceanographic Center, quoting a colleague.
Because lionfish are not native and have a threatening array of venomous spines, resident specieshaven't figured out that lionfish are good to eat.
"I think there's a lot of hope that larger predators will 'step up to the plate,' like groupers," said LadAkins, of the Key Largobased Reef Environmental Education Foundation, which puts on lionfishderbies and published a lionfish cookbook.
Akins demonstrated how to clean lionfish, which have thick, white fillets. Then chef Kareem Anguin,of The Oceanaire Seafood Room in Miami, described how he makes lionfish ceviche and servedsamples, which were delicious.
Lionfish, which some people say taste better than hogfish, are extremely high in beneficial omega3fatty acids. Ciguatera poisoning is always a concern when eating any species that inhabits reefs, butthere have been no lionfishrelated ciguatera incidents.
Dan Ellinor, of the FWC's Division of Marine Fisheries Management, said there is a "small lionfishmarket" in the Keys that consists of fish caught accidentally by lobster trappers. The red tapeinvolved with using fish traps to catch lionfish is daunting.
Spearfishing is effective in waters accessible to divers, which would be 130 feet or less. Kerstetter hastargeted and caught lionfish with rod and reel.
OceanGate, which makes manned submersibles and put on the symposium, took many of thepanelists to see lionfish in local waters as deep as 300 feet. The Seattle company's vessels could beused to catch lionfish at depth.
In the meantime, divers and anglers should kill and enjoy as many lionfish as they can. Green'sresearch has shown that regularly removing most of the lionfish from a reef allows native populationsto thrive.
"Removal must be continuous," she said. "We're no longer talking about eradication, but populationsuppression."
[email protected] or 9543564648.
Copyright © 2013, South Florida SunSentinel
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7/5/13 Eating lionfish best way to control them - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
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7/5/13 Eating lionfish best way to control them - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
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