Delicious Lionfish

[untamed]

I was diving in Belize a few weeks back... On my first dive, we had two large triggerfish follow us for the entire dive. I asked the dive master if she knew those fish personally. They were looking for lionfish handouts!

On the subsequent dives, we speared three or four, which were happily devoured by our companions.

[Treebeard]

The dive masters in Cozumel were also spearing them and feeding them to the triggers. The hope is that the triggers will eventually hunt live ones.

Originally Posted by untamed

I was diving in Belize a few weeks back... On my first dive, we had two large triggerfish follow us for the entire dive. I asked the dive master if she knew those fish personally. They were looking for lionfish handouts!

On the subsequent dives, we speared three or four, which were happily devoured by our companions.

[Scuba Diver Gal]

As divers we have speared many many lion fish and eaten even more. It's absolutely delicious! On Grand Cayman they encourage tourists to request lion fish on menus in restaurant to encourage more lion fish culls. So when traveling order lion fish.

We were diving in South Pacific where lion fish are supposed to be, they have natural predators there so you don't see them very often.

In grand cayman where we dive there are so many lion fish despite the culling. Divers are trying to train the predator fish to eat them, such as snappers and groupers. However they seem to just follow divers around the reef mooching. Hopefully one of these species will figure it out but for now their only predator is humans with spear guns.

We have spent some time at Little Cayman Marine Research Institute and they always are checking what the lion fish are eating etc. It's alarming how much these things eat off the reef. And they eat EVERYTHING!!! Check out their research and website at reefresearch.org

My son (fishingoalie) wants to study marine sciences...I'd love him to spend some time studying on Little Cayman at the research institute.

Eat lion fish!

[Treebeard]

Where have you been diving where you are allowed to spear them? Everyplace I have dove only the DMs are allowed.

[Scuba Diver Gal]

Grand cayman...we have our spear gun certification. I don't do it my son and husband do. We are always with a dive master as we don't travel with our own spear

[Treebeard]

Sounds like fun! My wife used to be a DM in Grand Cayman before she came to Canada.