Title: Eat it to beat it: A novel approach to managing marine invasives in Jamaica
By: Brandon Szalony
Transcript:
Hello, my name is Brandon Szalony and I was recently in the beautiful Caribbean country of Jamaica. The reason I was in Jamaica was to look into the invasion of lionfish and investigate the effects having on the ecology and economy of Jamaica. Non-native invasive species can be one of the most detrimental things to happen to any ecosystem; either aquatic or terrestrial. In most cases, non-native invasive species have been introduced to their new range either by accident or to try to combat an ecological problem. First spotted off the coast of South Florida in 1995, the lionfish invasion has spread rapidly throughout the entire Caribbean with severe effects to the coastal marine ecology of the region. Through research I have found out that the reason this fish is so invasive can be linked to a few different theories, the most accepted idea is the predator release hypothesis. The concept is that when the species is introduced to a new range it doesn't have any direct competitors or predators and so it is free to expand and essentially destroy its new range. Prior to the lionfish invasion, the economically important fisheries in Jamaica we're experiencing major pressure from overfishing and coastal development. Local management to combat the problem of overfishing has seen the rise of fish sanctuaries to try and give native species a chance to recover themselves from overfishing. The original legislation for these sanctuaries was that no fishing activities were to be allowed in these areas, however, once the lionfish was recognized as an invasive species the legislation was amended so that fishermen were allowed to fish lionfish in these sanctuaries this is an excellent example of human adaptation to try and manage a major problem and threat to major economic industry. So the question arose: what is the most effective way to manage these non-native invasive species? The government of Jamaica has already taken a major   in the management of line fish with their Eat it to Beat it campaign which focuses on educating fishermen in the general population on the safe cooking and handling of lionfish and convincing people that this fish is good eating fish. As a part of this campaign, the Bluefield’s Bay Friendly Fishermen Society has released a video that outlines the ecological and biological problems that the lionfish presents. “The Pacific lionfish is one of the greatest threats to the marine life of the Caribbean. A veracious invader that preys on 56 species of native fish. They’re land fishes relatively a new species of fish that we never know about until about three or four years ago and I realized that the only credit the harder than for his new line so we are using them up so people can get them to eat. In terms of catching the lionfish it is known that they can't be caught using hook and line they can be caught using fishing pots but this then presents the problem of bycatch which is one other fish that you didn't want to be caught end up being caught in the pot.” So far it is seen that the most effective method of catching lionfish is through the method of spearfishing. In meeting with locals in Jamaica it seems that everyone, even the uneducated spear fisherman knows the sanctuary is not effective when you have lionfish present. A paper by Koute et al. has shown that management of lionfish on native reefs can be effective up to a certain threshold if the reef is consistently fished for prolonged periods of time. More effort is needed to educate the spear fisherman on catching the lionfish and allowing them to catch and sell more of them. Tied in with the scientific data for Koute et al. this would be an effective way to manage lionfish population with the added bonus of helping the economy through diversifying livelihoods and helping to combat the overfishing that so many people dislike when regarding spearfishing. So next time you're in Jamaica make sure you Eat it to Beat it.