NYTimes Video about Lionfish invading the Florida keys, Caribbean

Submitted by gbh on Wed, 2010-11-24 14:05

This is a video about the expanding range and impact of lionfish, an invasive, poisonous, rapidly-reproducing fish in the Florida Keys and Caribbean. The footage follows a team of citizens competing in a tournament to catch lionfish. Tournaments like these are being used in an attempt to control the invasive fish and protect the native marine species that the lionfish are threatening.

Here's the video: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/22/science/12480

And the accompanying article by Erik Olsen: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/science/23lionfish.html

Do you think this will work?

Project Information
City or Town: 
Florida Keys
Resources I used to create this project: 
I didn't create this project myself, I'm just sharing it here. I found it on the New York Times homepage on November 24, 2010.
How should others reference your work?: 
New York Times, Science Times, November 22, 2010, http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/11/22/science/12480

Comments

Submitted by boggyplants on Sat, 2010-11-27 16:07.

lionfish

Wow, what a beautiful fish. What an incredible reproducer! The derby is an excellent idea, but I suspect it needs to have a multi-pronged approach to eliminating such a voracious fish. The derby, like Citizen Scientists, is an ideal way to get non-experts tuned into nature, invasive species, and fragility of the ecosystem.

The fish can produce 30,000 eggs every four days. Derbies alert many people, but more would need to be done. I'm sure they've done this, but having an ecosystem replica in a tank may give clues to what more could be done.As with any new species it's always a difficult question to consider if it's "nature taking her course" or humans messing things up at the greater speed like with global warming.

Joan