Lionfish derby nets most fish in event’s history

While rains from the future Hurricane Sally soaked the Florida Keys over the weekend, dozens of divers and snorkelers took to the water off the island chain to hunt for invasive lionfish.

From sunrise to sunset Friday and Saturday participants in the 11th annual REEF Upper Keys Lionfish Derby caught 1,321 fish, the most in the event’s history, organizers say.

The derby is sponsored by Keys environmental group REEF Environmental

Education Foundation. And although the conservation group is normally in the business of saving wildlife, the group and other environmentalists and government officials want lionfish swimming off the Keys and South Florida dead.

Lionfish are native to the Indian and Pacific oceans, but have taken to South Florida’s warm waters and have established themselves in the region since being introduced several decades ago.

Scientists believe the popular aquarium fish were released into the wild by pet owners after they outgrew their captive confines.

Not only don’t they belong here, they are voracious eaters with no natural predators in the area.

Stephanie Green, a University of Alberta researcher, in in a REEF statement on the event, estimated that lionfish are capable of reducing native fish species in certain sites by 65 to 95 percent.

“Impacts to valuable commercial fish like grouper and snapper could cause severe ecological and economic damage to countries in the invaded rage,” according to REEF. “Regular and public events such as derbies have been found to significantly reduce lionfish populations on a local scale.”

The good news is twofold. Lionfish are relatively easy for divers and snorkelers to catch with a stick and a net. Also, people who enjoy eating fish consider them tasty. They’ve even been for sale at Whole Foods Market in South Florida.

Twenty-seven teams participated in this year’s derby. Winners collectively won more than $4,000 in cash and prizes for catching the most lionfish, the largest and the smallest. The teams dropped off their catches in Key Largo and at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Summerland Key.

For more information on next year’s derby, which is scheduled for Sept. 12, 2021, go to https://www. reef.org/lionfish-derbies.