我仍然记得我第一次遇到invasive lionfish。It was in the late spring of 2010 during a scuba dive on the North Wall of Grand Cayman. For those unfamiliar, the North Wall is where the coral reefs surrounding the island, at 50 to 70 ft. in depth, abruptly drop off to the 5,000+ ft. abyss below (which, by the way, is very similar to the moment I first step foot in a women’s clothing store with my wife). We descended the wall to around 100 ft. and ran an eastward course. Much to my surprise, nearly every overhang we encountered was home to at least one large adult lionfish.
这次潜水以十几个奇妙的鳍鱼出现。就像墙本身一样,这种潜水与我们所知道的美丽的本地加勒比海礁与黑暗未知之间的纯粹对比,这种流行病带给了热带西部大西洋。
But we get plenty of the doom and gloom on a daily basis; the focus of this article is on the successful strides being made to control the invasion.
摘取牛群,一次一个标本
在努力开始时,并非没有公平的反对者,看来是用长矛(和类似设备)拆除的手动方法可以并且会有所作为。一种recent study俄勒冈州立大学的科学家表明,在某些地区将lion鱼种群减少75%至95%,将使本地鱼类种群反弹。
The key point here is that total eradication, which is all but impossible, isn’t necessary for reefs to recover. And this isn’t just theory; on select sites in the Bahamas, researchers have removed enough lionfish to maintain these levels. For their efforts, they’ve seen the native prey populations increase by 50–70%. In areas where no intervention took place, native species continued to decline and disappear.
最重要的是,此方法有效!如果您是潜水员,我鼓励您参加(在检查当地法规之后)。抓住长矛并在享受潜水时有所作为。
德比日
什么更好的方法来消除一个区域的nuisance than turning its capture into a team-based competition and putting a bounty on the most, largest, and smallest specimens? That’s the general idea behind a lionfish derby.
The first derby was put on by礁(礁环境教育基金会),并于2009年在巴哈马阿巴科举行了绿海龟Cay。他们现在运作每年多个德比and have collected more than 12,000 lionfish to date. Other organizations have also launched their own competitions throughout the Caribbean, Bahamas, and tropical western Atlantic with great participation and success.
If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em
吃lion鱼必须很危险,对吗?恰恰相反!除去有毒的刺时,lion鱼是安全的,可以随意准备和食用。实际上,这正是受影响系列周围的许多餐馆不仅为提高知名度,而且还将lion鱼视为海鲜美味佳肴。
我期待在整个美国的海鲜餐厅菜单上经常发现“加勒比狮犬”的一天。这是一个距离现实的一步Spinion,Ltd。这项基于大开曼岛的业务是由芝加哥的一对夫妇和一位本地开曼尼亚人创办的。他们很快就会开始将被淘汰的Lionfish出口到美国市场。
另外,如果您很好奇lion鱼的味道,您会感到惊喜。这种白色的,片状的黄油鱼可以根据收集的位置与石斑鱼,霍格鱼甚至玛希·马希相提并论。
If you’d like to try your hand at preparing lionfish, check out The Lionfish Cookbook. It’s full of great recipes and proceeds from its sale support REEF’s conservation efforts.
Educating the masses
When you encounter an aquarist who isn’t at least somewhat familiar with the plight non-native lionfish are causing (and presumably lives under a rock), they usually don’t understand why you would want to kill such a majestic creature. However, when they get all the background, usually they’re ready to go all King Henry VIII on any Caribbean lionfish they encounter.
在佛罗里达州FWC(佛罗里达鱼类和野生动植物保护委员会)积极提高对这些非本地鱼类及其对珊瑚礁的影响的认识。去年,他们主持了Lionfish峰会,该峰会汇集了潜水员,资源经理,保护主义者和科学家,制定了战斗计划,以攻击鳍入侵者并继续宣传。
在美国及其他地区,礁石帮助教育公众,定期进行水下调查,并组织前面提到的Lionfish Derbies。这些调查提供了有关lion鱼如何影响本地种群的很好的见解。
其他组织也加入了战斗,例如世界lion鱼猎人协会,包括公共宣传,教育计划和直接狩猎计划。
面对看似无法克服的任务,我们都可以有所作为。持续的努力和新想法将成为当地栖息地与这些侵入性掠食者达到平衡的催化剂。
Tell us about what you’ve done to help fight lionfish in the comments below!