Though my summer was slightly chaotic, I can’t complain. As cheesy as it sounds, I honestly believe my outlook was changed by my time at the park. It’s hard to not to appreciate the ocean and life when you’re surrounded and isolated by it in the most wonderful way. I lived in a historical fort and I dove daily in a part of the ocean that few get to experience. While others paid to dive there, I dove to get paid. And let me say, proponents of me spending the summer in the Dry Tortugas were not exaggerating about the great diving opportunities. There were days where I could see every last coral and creature from the boat because of the crystal clear, glassy water. I swam with endangered goliath groupers that were my size and just as curious of me as I was of them. I admired vulnerable pillar corals that looked like something out of the Muppets and have probably been around since before Fort Jefferson was constructed. I’ve dropped down on a reef that a critically endangered Hawksbill turtle used to rest and I’ve had a minor standoff with a blacktip reef shark who was a little too interested in my lionfish catch. Overall, these reefs were healthy, full of life and character, and operating with the same hustle and bustle of a metropolitan city.
As the summer progressed another University of Miami graduate student and I settled into our roles as the park’s official lionfish hunters. Despite their menacing reputation, they are a popular fish for the aquarium trade because they are actually quite a beautiful species, almost flamboyantly so. It is the defensive, venomous spines on their dorsal, ventral and anal fins that gained them their ominous status. Lionfish venom is in the hollowed out channel in these spines, and when these venomous spines prick something, or someone, the venom passively enters the body. Luckily, I never experienced the pain of having stung myself on a lionfish spine, but from what I’ve heard from colleagues it is not a pleasant event. The words “it’ll make you wish you were dead” were at one point declared, and that was enough for me to take precaution when hunting and handling.
No one knows for sure how these fish arrived in the Atlantic, but scientists do agree that it wouldn’t have taken many to start this invasion, speculating that as little as three to six lionfish could have gotten us into this mess. We do know that the first sightings were in Florida and probably pertained to aquarium fish being released, either accidently through storms or intentionally by well-meaning pet owners wishing to rerelease their pets to the “wild”. Either way, those actions have had lasting effects on Atlantic ecosystems throughout the Caribbean, with sightings as far north as the waters off of New York and Rhode Island and as far south as Brazil.
This completely contradicts the findings in other areas of the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary where lionfish numbers are much higher and more daunting. Single-day lionfish derbies are competitions in which teams of divers and snorkelers work to collect as many lionfish as they can. Derbies conducted by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), a non-profit organization committed to ocean conservation, have been known to catch upwards of 600 to 800 lionfish. One 2015 derby actually caught 2,583 lionfish in one day. In contrast, our record was 9 lionfish landed in a single day and even that took a lot of hard work and determination to achieve. Despite our one success, there were periods of several days we would dive and see not a single lionfish.
The obvious question, then, was why were lionfish under control in the Dry Tortugas? As I mentioned, for a majority of the year, nobody at the park is controlling the lionfish population so the lionfish could have grown out of control. No conclusive testing has yet been done, but anecdotal evidence, internet videos, and even the park biological sciences technician’s educated guess find that other, larger predators at the park may have started to feed on the local lionfish population. I will attest that almost every time I shot a lionfish, there was a red grouper lingering, hoping to benefit from my hard work. Because the Dry Tortugas is protected, predator species have the ability to live longer and grow larger. Lionfish sightings in the Dry Tortugas peaked in 2011 and have decreased every year since, possibly due to increased consumption by these unforeseen new predators. This means marine reserves may have yet another benefit for managers and policymakers to cite. If the aforementioned theory proves to be true, the Dry Tortugas may serve to support the idea that the creation of a protected area can help drive down invasive populations such as lionfish by strengthening ecosystems, in turn nurturing larger reef predators that have been declining elsewhere.
I hope to take a first step in supporting the theory that there is a difference in lionfish populations between the protected Dry Tortugas and rest of the less regulated Florida Keys with my graduate project for University of Miami. My initial disgust for slicing open lionfish heads and collecting the tiny, fragile otolith bones soon faded as I took pride in my newfound ability. Collecting the otolith (ear) bones of our catches allowed us to estimate the age of the animals, since those bones have age-rings like those found in a tree trunk. Combined with the data we took on length, weight, and sex, we can then compare the growth of lionfish in the Dry Tortugas National Park to other areas of the Florida Keys. Analyzing this data could potentially show a significant difference in growth between populations in these areas. A population skewed to either extreme (younger and smaller versus larger and older) could support the idea of predatory control of lionfish by predators. We may never be able to completely remove invasive species from their new habitats. With research that supports the ability of ecosystems to adapt and naturally manage invasive populations, however, we could give managers the tools to garner support for new policies that would mitigate damage already done and help affected sites establish a new normal.
What’s more, we need to spread the word that lionfish is perfectly safe to eat. Not only is this a delicious first step to managing this invasive species, but, if presented correctly, consuming lionfish actually becomes an educational experience. What better way to get a person personally connected to a conservation issue than through their stomachs? The biggest misconception is that lionfish are poisonous to diners. They aren’t, they are venomous. Their flesh is not toxic. Poison works through touch, ingestion or inhalation, while venoms are injected directly into a wound. Furthermore, lionfish venom is denatured with heat. In fact, as the venom gets cooked and denatures, the spines become harmless. We’ve seen people use the spines as fancy toothpicks and stylish jewelry. Divers and chefs are the ones at risk, not the people enjoying lionfish pizza, lionfish ceviche, or lionfish tacos.
Effective public education campaigns will help create more demand and an incentive for divers to go out and hunt these fish. And it’s already started. After my internship ended, I saw an unexpected and familiar face staring back at me from the seafood counter at a grocery store in Virginia: a defeated Key West lionfish ready to be eaten by a consumer that has, perhaps unknowingly, just took a first step in helping protect our coral reefs from a predator that is likely to never be fully eradicated.
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