KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — April 13, 2014 — Across the region, governments, conservation groups and dive shops have been sponsoring fishing tournaments and other efforts to go after slow-swimming lionfish to try and stave off an already severe crisis. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a campaign in 2010 urging the U.S. public to ‘‘eat sustainable, eat lionfish!’’
Jamaica is reporting a big decline in sightings of lionfish, the voracious invasive species that has been wreaking havoc on regional reefs for years and wolfing down native juvenile fish and crustaceans
Some four years after a national campaign got started to slash numbers of the candy-striped predator with a mane of venomous spines, Jamaica’s National Environment and Planning Agency is reporting a 66 percent drop in sightings of lionfish in coastal waters with depths of 75 feet (23 meters).
Dayne Buddo, a Jamaican marine ecologist who focuses on marine invaders at the Caribbean island’s University of the West Indies, attributes much of the local decrease in sightings to a growing appetite for their fillets. He said Sunday that Jamaican fishermen are now selling lionfish briskly at markets. In contrast, a few years ago island fishermen ‘‘didn’t want to mess’’ with the exotic fish with spines that can deliver a very painful sting.
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