Sightlucky

Fort Myers - If you want to see a perfect eating machine in action, you can hardly do better than watching a hungry lionfish. Since its introduction into the Atlantic off the Florida coast in the 1980's and 1990's, the fish has been on a disastrous feeding frenzy.

That feeding frenzy has lead the lionfish all the way from Florida to North Carolina to coastal Venezuela, Scientific American reports. They have even been sighted as far north as Rhode Island, but here, they can't survive in cold waters.Now, Florida has instituted a first-of-its-kind ban that went into effect on August 1, even though this ban may be an example of too little, too late. Bringing this spiny, voracious agent of maritime destruction into Florida is now punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and a year in the slammer. Adopted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in June, the measure also calls for the following, per FloridaToday:• Allowing the harvesting of these fish when divers use a rebreather, which recycles air and allows divers to remain in the water for a longer period.• Allowing participants in approved tournaments and other such events to spear lionfish or other invasive species in areas where spearfishing is not allowed. This will be done under the auspices of a permitting system.At least some of the lionfish were likely dumped from aquariums and their population has literally exploded. The fish has been declared a major threat throughout much of the coastal waters of the Atlantic from North Carolina to the Caribbean, Time.com reports.Sadly, this ban will hardly put a dent in most of their populations, however.A female lionfish can produce up to two million eggs in a year. Keeping up with this evolutionary assembly line would be difficult even for the most ardent divers. The invasion of these fish has been so all-pervasive in the Caribbean that their populations have reached densities never seen before in the Pacific of Southern Asia, where they are native, reports Inter Press Service.In Nassau, a recent scientific paper showed that in a period of just one year after colonising a Caribbean reef, lionfish dropped the number of native fish by about half.'They'll eat just about anything they can swallow and almost nothing eats them,' Stephanie Green, of Oregon State University and the study's principal author told Inter Press. That, she noted, is why they are so easy to catch.Scientists believe that the lionfish will likely wipe out most Caribbean reef fish within a decade or two at the most. This will prove disastrous for many of the Caribbean's beautiful corals that have evolved to depend upon herbivorous fishes. The corals will die and turn to rubble, meaning that shorelines will be more vulnerable to waves just as global warming is causing rising sea levels, Inter Press reports.In the Atlantic, their range now covers 3.3 million square kilometres. Lionfish can reach densities hundreds of times higher than in their native range, and scientists do not know why this is.'Something is controlling their abundance,' Mark Hixon of the University of Hawaii told Inter Press. 'We're guessing a small predator that's absent in the Atlantic is targeting baby lions, but we have no idea what it is.'Even worse, lionfish eat all species of small adult reef fish, and they also eat virtually all species of bigger fish when they appear on the reef as juveniles. The effect of this may not be felt for a while because some larger predatory fish such as snappers and groupers can take years to mature and this won't be noticeable until the juveniles that are being eaten now fail to replace the adults who are too large to be prey for lionfish, per Inter Press.There are few bright spots in this sad story, but they are there. In the U.S. the idea of lionfish for dinner is catching on in some places. Lad Akins, who founded the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), has been working in an effort to control these voracious predators for nearly a decade, told Inter Press that the commercial take of lionfish in Florida, where his company is based, quintupled in just one year to 6.1 tonnes in 2012.'It's growing fast, but we don't know yet if it's putting a dent in the lionfish population,' he said. Scientists said that the 'eat them to beat them,' strategy has failed to have much of an effect and isn't likely to do so because spear fishing lionfish is too time-consuming to be profitable.This reporter has snorkeled with lionfish in the Caribbean, and while they are quite docile, if one of these fish feels threatened, it flares out those beautiful wing-like pectoral fins, as well as the spines on its back. While the spines aren't deadly, they are nevertheless quite venomous, and that means they are indeed challenging to spear.Fortunately, there have been some documented successes, and most of this is due to recreational diving companies that are definitely defending their turf. Colorful reef fish are the mainstay of these businesses, so they have begun methodically exterminating the invaders from their regular dive sites, per Inter Press.In the gorgeous diving mecca that is Bonaire, located in the Dutch West Indies, the first lionfish was caught in 2009, and it wasn't long before they were proliferating, Fadilah Ali of the University of Southampton told Inter Press. Then 300 volunteers were given special spears and more than 10,000 lionfish were killed. It wasn't long before their density dropped in the areas favored by divers.'Today, on a typical dive, you'll see very few or no lionfish,' she said.Lionfish have even made their way into mangroves, which serve as nurseries for many species, but Green said it might be possible to eradicate them, especially if recreational divers go beyond the reefs favored by their clients. Reefs have many different species, but relatively few juvenile fish.In September, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will discuss additional punishment for breeding lionfish.Lionfish are definitely beautiful, and it is a treat to see them in the wild, but their impact in the Caribbean has been devastating.That is truly tragic indeed.