The FWC Lionfish Problem in Florida noticed record-breaking participation and harvest numbers this 12 months. Some 285 divers eliminated 31,773 invasive lionfish from fragile coral reef ecosystems within the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, in accordance with a press release from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee.
A kind of scuba divers was 46-year-old Baye Beauford of Jacksonville, who harvested 915 lionfish on his personal with a pole spear. Beauford went on to win the leisure division of the competitors, which stretched over 4 months. He received the identical division in 2023. Beauford’s buddy and dive accomplice, Dale Wolber, got here in second place with 866 fish, and Tim Robinson of Broward County (who OL has spearfished with before) got here in third with 726 lionfish.
“The primary 12 months of the problem, I received second place and I didn’t even strive,” Beauford tells OL.
Photograph courtesy of Baye Beauford
Beauford’s not bragging. As a substitute, he chalks up the benefit with which he beats different divers to the alarming severity of the lionfish downside off the coast of Duval County in northeastern Florida. Divers within the Jacksonville space exert little or no stress on the lionfish inhabitants. This units Jacksonville other than different areas of Florida, just like the Keys, the place divers harvest lionfish extra frequently and maintain the populations decrease. Over the 4 months of the competitors, Beauford and his mates went on roughly one or two journeys every week, which implies his 915 lionfish got here from just some dozen excursions.
The divers journey about 30 miles offshore to get to reefs with probably the most explosive lionfish populations. They dive to roughly 90 to 100 ft and hunt for a half-hour or so at a time, Beauford says. Lionfish are comparatively simple to identify round these reefs, though they aren’t giant fish; Beauford’s private file is a 2.98-pounder.
Photograph courtesy of Baye Beauford
Leisure individuals like Beauford report fish to the months-long competitors by slicing off lionfish tails, freezing them, and delivering them to a close-by verify station, normally a bait store or different licensed location.
Florida’s Lionfish Drawback
Lionfish are ravenous, invasive, predatory fish which have taken up residence within the waters across the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Coast, feeding on grouper, snapper, and different gamefish species within the space. They’re native to Indo-Pacific waters, however seemingly ended up close to Florida and elsewhere alongside the U.S. coast because of the aquarium commerce.
As a result of native predatory fish within the space don’t acknowledge lionfish as potential prey, they don’t have any pure predators in the meanwhile. That is the place spear divers are available. Just like Florida’s Python Problem, the Lionfish Problem incentivizes divers to reap as many lionfish as attainable, in hopes of constructing a distinction within the preservation of native marine ecosystems.
A single lionfish dwelling in a coral reef can scale back the recruitment, or the profitable inhabitants development, of native reef fish by as much as 79 p.c, according to NOAA. Contemplating the truth that lionfish can achieve inhabitants densities of 200 fish per acre of reef, they take an enormous toll on native fish numbers.
It helps that lionfish additionally occur to be scrumptious, and that their pores and skin is helpful for intricate jewellery and leather-based detailing. Each these makes use of assist create a requirement for lionfish byproducts, which in flip helps incentivize removing. The truth is, the business division of the Lionfish Problem is reserved for divers who promote the fish they harvest, and their harvests are recorded by kilos quite than particular person fish. (All high three business finishers have been additionally from Duval County — divers Beauford is aware of properly; Matt Meyers got here in first place with 1,785 kilos of fish.)
Photograph courtesy of Baye Beauford
At the moment, a pound of lionfish meat fetches round $6, Beauford says. Lionfish has turn into his household’s favourite protein; Beauford says it’s just like hogfish or crimson snapper with its white, flaky flesh. Now, he simply desires to see extra individuals get on board.
“Folks don’t hear about them as a result of they’re not on the menu in quite a lot of locations,” Beauford says. “We have now one distributor right here that owns 9 eating places, and he showcases them on his menu. However that’s just about it up right here [in Jacksonville].”
If different culinary favorites like grouper and snapper are getting decimated by lionfish, then Beauford sees a chance to assist re-regulate the marine meals chain by altering what fish he places on his desk.
“Lionfish can eat 3 times their body weight in sooner or later, and so they’re consuming grouper and snapper and the entire species which can be closely regulated that we might in any other case be consuming,” he says. “However this species is definitely a sustainable supply of fish. We are able to’t get all of them, and so they multiply so quick.”
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Though Beauford plans to proceed spearing lionfish outdoors the competitors, he nonetheless received a kick out of being topped the Lionfish King for the second 12 months in a row.
“It feels nice,” Beauford says of successful this 12 months’s competitors. “Everyone knows one another. We’re a staff that goes out and kills it.”
