Join us at Florida Keys Brewing Co. on Saturday, August 17, from 4pm-9pm for an exciting night of raising awareness about the threat of invasive lionfish! The event is free and open to the public and will include engaging activities, free lionfish tastings, live music, and family-friendly fun.
We're gearing up to host the 15th annual REEF Florida Keys Lionfish Derby & Festival on August 15-18! A Lionfish Derby is a competition where teams of divers and snorkelers compete to collect as many invasive lionfish as possible. REEF Lionfish Derbies educate the public about invasive species, gather important scientific information on lionfish populations, and help to develop a consumer market for invasive lionfish.
Thanks to the generous support of OpenROV and National Geographic, REEF received two Trident remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) to advance our research on endangered Nassau Grouper and invasive lionfish.
There is growing concern that lionfish will affect the structure and function of invaded marine ecosystems. Lead author, Stephanie Green, from Simon Fraser University (SFU), along with REEF Director of Special Projects, Lad Akins and other co-authors Aleks Maljković (SFU), and Isabelle Côté (SFU), documented a dramatic 65% decline in 42 species of reef fish eaten by lionfish over a two year period.
Information on fish movement and growth is primarily obtained through the marking and tracking of individuals with external tags, which are usually affixed to anesthetized individuals at the surface. However, the quantity and quality of data obtained by this method is often limited by small sample sizes owing to the time associated with the tagging process, high rates of tagging-related mortality, and displacement of tagged individuals from the initial capture location.
This article highlights the effectiveness of lionfish derbies in the Florida Keys, including the recent Earth Day Lionfish Derby where winning team Forever Young swept all three prize categories - most lionfish, largest, and smallest.
