Invasive Species Found in Florida and Illinois

"Eat' Em" Stratagem for Lionfish Invasion in Florida

January 1, 2011

Reuters – Florida marine conservationists have come up with a simple recipe for fighting the invading lionfish that is gobbling up local reef life -- eat them.

The Key Largo-based REEF conservation organization has just released "The Lionfish Cookbook," a collection of 45 recipes which is the group's latest strategy to counter an invasion of the non-native reddish brown-striped fish in Florida waters.

"It's absolutely good eating -- a delicacy. It's delicately flavored white meat, very buttery," Lad Akins, director of special projects for Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), told Reuters. He authored the cookbook along with a professional chef, Tricia Ferguson.

Red lionfish, a prickly predator armed with flaring venomous spines like a lion's mane that give them their name, are native to the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and Red Sea.

With few natural predators, they have been rapidly expanding in Caribbean and Atlantic waters, voraciously preying on local fish, shrimp and crab populations across the region and in Florida, which has world-famous coral reefs.

Some scientists are now listing the invasive lionfish species among the top 15 threats to global biodiversity.

While REEF has organized local fishing "derbies" to hunt the lionfish, including handling tips and tasting sessions, Akins said making humans the invading species' top predator was the best way to fight back against the threat it posed.

"Fishermen and divers realize it's a danger to our native marine life, through its predation. But there really aren't government funds to provide bounties or removal programs. So creating a demand for the fish, a market for the fish, is in effect a de facto bounty," he told Reuters.

U.S. government researchers believe the red lionfish was introduced into Florida waters during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 when an aquarium broke and at least six fish spilled into Miami's Biscayne Bay.

"CARIBBEAN'S NEW DELICACY"

The front section of the cookbook, which calls the lionfish "The Caribbean's New Delicacy," gives useful tips on collecting, handling and preparing the colorful species, as well as providing expert background on its ecological impact.

Akins says the fish, which lives among coral, can be netted, speared or caught by rod and reel, but he recommends handling them with puncture-proof gloves to avoid a painful prick from the mantle of venomous spines.

"They can be quick over a short distance, but they're not a free-swimming ocean fish like a tuna or a mackerel," he said.

Unlike the toxic Fugu pufferfish or blowfish, which is an expensive delicacy in Japan but requires careful expert preparation to avoid potentially fatal poisoning, Akins says lionfish meat is safe to eat and contains no venom.

"The venom is only in the spines. Cooking the fish would denature the venom, even if you left the spines on. It's simple enough just to cut the spines off," he said.

Akins said he hoped the cookbook could help create a commercial market for lionfish that would speed their eradication. But he wasn't sure whether the brightly colored invader would appear on the menus of Miami Beach eateries.

"It certainly is on the menu in many other countries -- the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic, Mexico," he said, adding that orders for the recipe book, which can be purchased online at www.reef.org, were coming in fast.

Second Chemical Attack on Asian Carp Planned

May 5, 2010

Chicago Tribune - Illinois officials will launch a second chemical attack against Asian carp this month, this time closing an important section of the Calumet-Sag Channel to boating and cargo ships while biologists use a deadly fish toxin to hunt the invasive species.

A narrow 2-mile stretch of the channel south of the O'Brien Lock and Dam will be closed for at least five days beginning May 20, part of the next phase in the $80 million federal effort to stop the spread of Asian carp into the Great Lakes.

Officials will target areas where they have found Asian carp DNA but have yet to find whole fish. Proponents of this new plan, which will include more testing and monitoring, say this is the best chance to gauge how imminent a threat the carp pose to Lake Michigan.

But businesses that rely on the Cal-Sag Channel –– which links Lake Michigan to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and, eventually, the Mississippi River –– said Wednesday they would feel the squeeze from the closure.

Mark Biel, executive director of the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois, reported that barges transported more than 180,000 tons of materials, from grain to petroleum, through the O'Brien lock last week alone. He warned that closing the locks, even temporarily, would mean delayed shipments and higher costs.

"I don't know any business that would want to be out of business for a week by mandate," said Jim Farrell of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. "But in the long run this might help our situation when, as we believe, they don't find any carp."

Fish biologists will disperse the toxin, rotenone, about a mile south of the O'Brien lock at 135th Street and Stony Island Avenue. The application will be completed in a day, but fish recovery could take another five days, officials said.

Rotenone was the chemical the Illinois Department of Natural Resources used in December to kill thousands of fish in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal while engineers disabled underwater electric barriers for maintenance. That search effort cost about $3 million and located just one Asian carp, but it confirmed that the fish had moved within striking distance of the barriers erected to keep them out.

Biologists have used rotenone for decades to eradicate fish and control their movement, and they say it is not believed to be dangerous to humans or wildlife.

68-Pound Asian Carp Caught in Chicago by Fisherman Spencer Miller

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