and I saw the most beautiful fish I had ever seen.
It had these bold stripes and these big dramatic spines.
And I had no idea what it was.
So I went to the dive master and he told me
I had just seen a lionfish.
And I was hooked.
I started reading everything I could
about this strange and beautiful fish
and what I found completely astounded me.
I had no idea that something so gorgeous
could be causing such harm on our native reef ecosystems.
Lionfish are what is known as an invasive species.
And that’s defined as a species
that is non-native to its area
and that is causing harm or is likely to cause harm.
Now, lionfish are originally from the Indo-Pacific region
and they were introduced off the coast of South Florida
in the mid 1980s.
And most likely it was through an aquarium release.
So, someone who had some pet lionfish
didn’t want to take care of them anymore
and then just dumped them into the local waterways.
So this is problematic for a couple of reasons.
First, lionfish are prolific breeders.
They can produce two million eggs over the course of one year
and one lion fish and all of her offspring
can produce 8.1 quintillion eggs in just three months.
And the other thing is they are voracious predators.
They’re essentially like the hoover vacuums of the sea.
They can eat anything up to half their size
and unfortunately that includes
a lot of the really cool interesting reef fish
that we like to see on the reef as divers.
To top it all off they have
a series of venomous spines lining their back.
This produces a very nasty neurotoxin
that causes pain and swelling if you’re stung.
One of my interviewees told me that it won’t kill you
but it will make you wish you were dead.
So, this is definitely not a fish
that we want wandering around where it doesn’t belong.
And the more I read about this fish
the more I realized that there was a lot of talk about
the biology and ecology of lionfish.
But really was– no one was diving into
the kind of social implications of this fish.
So, I went to South Florida and
I found this incredible community that has
completely rallied around the removal of this species
using whatever resources they have at their disposal.
For example, you have Bob and Maria Hickerson.
They’re located in South Florida
and they would go in their free time, and try and remove
as many lionfish as possible on their local reefs.
But they were getting so frustrated because
they were leaving so many fish behind.
So, they took some tools and
random things they found at Home Depot
and created the very first lionfish-specific spear gun.
So, now you can remove them at a much faster rate.
And then, Maria takes the spines and the fins
and creates really beautiful pieces of lionfish jewelry.
She then sells them to support the removal initiatives
but also raise awareness about lionfish as an invasive species.
So, the great thing about lionfish is that
they’re actually delicious to eat, and that’s something that
John Mirabella, who lives in Marathon Key
found out for himself.
He would go out and remove lionfish in the morning
and take it back to the restaurant he owned on Marathon
and just experiment with all different types of recipes.
So, here’s lionfish sushi
which I tried and it was delicious.
And then I did run out of food money.
I spent it all on diving.
I have my priorities really messed up.
And so, I ended up eating lionfish for almost every meal
for like two weeks… ( laughs )
which was totally barbaric.
But it was delicious.
And the great thing is that in John’s restaurant
he marketed that he was serving lionfish
in the local newspapers
and people were coming from all over the Keys
to sample this fish
which shows that even if people are removing them themselves
they’re excited to support initiatives that are.
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