Comments on: Ministry Holding Lionfish Trapping Experiment

By: Joanna PItt

Joanna PItt — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 01:18:44 +0000

Just for the record, trying to train predators to eat lionfish off a spear is a really dangerous idea. All this achieves is training the sharks to associate divers and spear fishers with food, and they then hassle humans at every opportunity in the hopes of getting fed. Such practices are discouraged.

By: consider

consider — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:11:41 +0000

Some guys in the Caribbean are trying to train sharks to eat lionfish. They are feeding them off a spear hoping they will get a taste for it.

By: lea

lea — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:30:31 +0000

Groupers, Moray eels, sharks. According to Wikipedia.

By: Anne Hyde

Anne Hyde — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 12:47:09 +0000

Lionfish from the Pacific were accidentally introduced to the Atlantic. The Atlantic fish do not recognize the lionfish as a predator. The lionfish is a very serious predator that the other fish should swim away from, as they do in the Pacific but haven’t learned this yet in the Atlantic. So the lionfish can eat and eat without worry in Bermuda’s waters. The only predator to lionfish in the Atlantic is mankind. The local divers who have the special license to spear lionfish have been very successful in catching them thus far. Let’s get these on the menu and “Eat em to Beat em”. BTW, the meat of the fish is not poisonous, only the tips of the spines which can be trimmed off before preparing as a food.

By: just wondering

just wondering — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 11:33:31 +0000

The problem is that there is nothing in the Atlantic that eat lionfish. They were released in south Florida in around 1985 and have now exploded into the Caribbean and the Gulf. Also reef fish don’t recognize them as predators so they are able to feed and breed without competition.

By: Hope

Hope — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 11:19:46 +0000

Lionfish do not originate in our Atlantic waters, but actually come from the cental Pacific Ocean. They were likely introduced in to the waters off of Miami by the fish keeping industry, and their numbers have increased dramatically as they have no natural predators in our waters. Groupers in the Caribbean have been videoed eating them, but they are not easy prey to catch. As far as I am aware there have been no known cases of a Bermuda Grouper preying on Lionfish. Our Groupers are smaller than those in the Caribbean.

If we wait for the Lionfish to eat everything it can and run out of food source and starve itself, then we’ll be without any ocean life. Lionfish specifically prey on young fish that do not recognise them as a predator, and sadly when young fish are killed then they do not grow to become breeding adults.

The BUEI has a great exhibit on the Lionfish, it’s definitely worth a visit, especially for children.

By: Build a Better Bermuda

Build a Better Bermuda — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 04:08:35 +0000

There are some predators to the lion fish back in its native habitat, as it stands, none of our local predators that might fill that void, have shown any signs of developing the taste. We simply can’t expect our local environ to adjust to an apex animal when it took evolution to counter it in its own. It may eventually take time, locally, but in the mean time we can explore what measure we can take

By: Experience

Experience — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 01:38:21 +0000

Impossible to catch them?? Clearly you’ve never been lionfish hunting. lol. If we “let nature take its course” with these lionfish, eventually, there won’t be much underwater nature left.

By: Wondering

Wondering — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 23:11:32 +0000

So what is the lionfish’s natural enemy? Surely something eats it. Otherwise it would have decimated its own natural habitat already!?!?!

By: Go Fish

Go Fish — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 19:27:43 +0000

Studies in other countries afflicted by the lionfish proved that they are smart and adapt to our hunting techniques, thereby making it almost impossible to catch them now. This was known a year ago perhaps, yet Bermudians continue oblivious, and will only come to the same end result the other nations did, which is even worse of a lionfish problem. You are actually training them to escape better. Let nature takes it course instead. Hunt some yes but not in some genocide or else you will end up with the “super-bacteria effect”