You can make a difference!
Removing just one female fish takes 2 million eggs a year out of the water. If enough people are out there taking lionfish every time they dive, we can save our fishery. Besides, lionfish are delicious and there is no bag limit or closed season! Heck, you don't even have to have a fishing license to kill them now!!
Last year I spent 2 weeks in the Bahamas and saw very few groupers, triggers etc... What did I see a lot of? LIONFISH The Bahamas does not allow spearfishing while on scuba and lionfish do not bite hooks so the lionfish population has created a crisis for their native fishery. That was a wake-up call. We have to be agressive and we need the masses to participate in the effort to remove as many lionfish as possible.
This summer I went to Belize. They do not allow spearfishing while on scuba either but, several years ago, as soon as the lionfish showed up on their reefs, they changed their rules to allow lionfish spearing and began a bounty and educational program. We saw an abundance of native reef fish and only 2 lionfish and both of them were killed by tourists that were given lionfish spears by the dive operator. Our dive operator had a stack of lionfish spears for anyone that wanted to kill lionfish. (I was impressed that they were even enlisting the help of tourists!) Belize is an example of what we can do here if enough people take the threat seriously and don't throw their hands up in defeat.
I hope that all spearfishers will join in the effort to remove lionfish and I hope that our reward program will motivate a lot of you to join the effort to save our native fishery.
Have fun, stay safe, eat some delicious lionfish and, Win some GREAT prizes!
