Category Archives: Lionfish

conservation, Lionfish, Outreach, Reef ecology, SCUBA, Student Research, The Island School

Summer update from the Reef Ecology and Conservation Program

July 21, 2015 teamcomm

With the arrival of the summer interns, undergraduate and postgraduate placement students several weeks ago, CEI researcher Dr. Jocelyn Curtis-Quick has been able to tackle many different projects this summer. These projects include propagating corals at the nursery, filleting over 150 pounds of lionfish, conducting reef monitoring and conducting parrotfish feeding studies.

During March 2014, CEI installed a coral reef nursery at Tunnel Rock in collaboration with the University of Miami RSMAS and NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Metrological Laboratories and CEI Research Manager Annabelle Brooks. In the face of rapid coral population declines, growing coral through nurseries has been an initiative to replenish wild coral. The team measured the growth progress and refragmented the coral that has been steadily amassing at CEI’s nursery.

Fragmentation of coral refers to splitting of coral to help increase coral colonies and therefore increase reproduction. Half of the fragments were re-attached to the coral nursery at Tunnel Rock, and the other half were set up at a new nursery site closer to The Island School. This summer, the team will compare the growth and survival rates of the coral at these two different sites. The long-term goal is to transplant the coral frags out on the reef.

This summer the team is also being kept busy with the success of the Slayer campaign and has filleted over 150 pounds of lionfish- and has over 200 lbs to do! Over the past couple of weeks, a few local fishermen have delivered hundreds of pounds of lionfish for CEI’s “You Slay, We Pay Campaign.” These lionfish are also dissected to examine gonad development and stomach content, which can offer important insight on the invasion impacts.

Additionally, the team prepared for parrotfish behavioral research this summer. This prep has involved dive teams using a herding technique to catch the juvenile parrotfish, as well as setting up raceways in the lab to conduct a feeding behavior experiment.

A few other exciting events include three of the reef interns completing their Advanced Diving Certification and starting on their Rescue, as well visit of a teenager Earthwatch group who assisted with research for a week. Additionally, working with The Island School students to sample inland ponds and dissection lionfish was great fun. The whole team is pumped for the rest of the summer and getting much more achieved.

Lionfish, SCUBA

Lionfish June Patch Reef Surveys

July 2, 2015 teamcomm

The lionfish team recently completed their quarterly surveys of lionfish and other reef fish in the patch reef system of South Eleuthera, part of a longterm study.

Adrian (SP 15 intern) does a great job removing a lionfish

This time around the team saw a few unfamiliar fish species on the reef. First on the list are juvenile Bluelip parrotfish; these fish are not a usual site on the reefs and this may be the first time they were spotted in these parts. Next the team saw the spotted hawk fish; which can be difficult to identify. Lastly, a Bandtailed puffer popped in on one of the surveys. Sadly the Bigeye that has been hanging out on one patch for the last nine months had moved on.

One of the lionfish removed during surveys

A total 91 lionfish were spotted from the 16 sites visited over the four days of diving. However,the team speared/netted 30 of those lionfish from removal reefs! The biggest one caught was 27 cm long and the smallest was 4 cm. Interestingly, they caught quite a few lionfish that were under 10 cm, which is great that they can remove the little ones off the reef before they have a chance to reproduce.

Lionfish, Local Community, Outreach, Plastics, Sustainable Fisheries

Sustainable Fisheries team represents at 2015 Conch Fest!

June 16, 2015 teamcomm

The CEI Sustainable Fisheries team serving up lionfish fritters

Last weekend, Deep Creek hosted its annual Conch Fest. Unlike past years, Conch Fest was new and improved, focused on keeping Deep Creek green, clean, and pristine. Instead of using plastic containers to hand out food, all of the booths used recyclable materials. Single use plastics have become an issue for the oceans, as they are being consumed by and entangling marine organisms. This initiative in Deep Creek will hopefully spread to other settlements as well as other islands to reduce the plastics ending up in the oceans.

All ages were trying and loving lionfish fritters.

The Sustainable Fisheries Team of The Cape Eleuthera Institute set up their own booth at Conch Fest among the many others. While the live lionfish in the tank and the model of the aquaponics system attracted attention, the main attraction of the night was the lionfish fritters that the team handed out as samples for everyone to try. Although conch fritters are part of the traditional Bahamian cuisine, many Bahamians were both surprised and impressed by how tasty the lionfish fritters were! Most people came back for seconds and many requested a bag to take home with them.

The team also had lionfish jewelry on display and every pair or lionfish earrings were sold by the end of the night. Some people even made special orders for lionfish jewelry to be picked up at a later date.

The Minister of Education and Technology tried his first lionfish fritter and loved it!

Although conch fritters are a tasty treat, conch is an unsustainable fishery. Hopefully people will begin to cook lionfish fritters instead of conch fritters after tasting them at The Sustainable Fisheries booth this year. Next year the Sustainable Fisheries Team will be back at Conch Fest handing out lionfish fritters, and spreading the word on how pretty (as jewelry) and tasty lionfish can be!

Educational Programs, Lionfish, Sea turtles

Tandem Friends School visits CEI

June 8, 2015 teamcomm

Phoebe Shuylor, Emma Ward, and Rachael Alberts head to the creeks with Rachel and Grace from the sea turtle conservation team to do sea turtle abundance surveys.

Earlier this May, we welcomed the very FIRST group of female students to ever visit CEI from Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville, Virginia. This trip was planned as part of their school’s Emphasis Week, a time where students have an opportunity to travel and immerse themselves in learning experiences outside of the classroom, and they couldn’t have picked a better place! The group spent a week exploring the reefs and creeks around South Eleuthera, adapting to living sustainably, and doing things that they might not be able to anywhere else in the world!

Admiring a lionfish's gape during a dissection with the sustainable fisheries team. Left to right- Kate Bollinger, Susan Wheeler, Emma Ward, Alanna Waldman, Rachael Alberts — Admiring a lionfish’s gape during a dissection with the sustainable fisheries team.
Left to right- Kate Bollinger, Susan Wheeler, Emma Ward, Alanna Waldman, Rachael Alberts

Before Tandem Friends arrived, they had 3 things on their marine creature checklist- sharks, turtles, and sea stars. Guess what?! We managed to see all three! After getting settled into dorms, everyone came down to dip their feet into the Bahamian waters. Sure enough, the water was so calm and clear we spotted some sea stars from shore! We spent much of the first full day out helping the turtle conservation team do abundance surveys and came across a few turtles in their natural habitat. The next morning while snorkeling we came across the tiniest juvenile nurse shark hiding out in the wreck just off the beach! Continue reading →

Center for Sustainable Development, Conch, Lionfish, Outreach, Research Programs, Sustainable Fisheries

CEI outreach at Earth Day Event

April 29, 2015 teamcomm

Last weekend, the Sustainable Fisheries team packed up a van full of educational materials and headed to Governor’s Harbour for the annual Earth Day event, hosted by One Eleuthera, to showcase the ongoing sustainable projects at The Cape Eleuthera Institute.

Representatives from Aquaponics and the Center for Sustainable Development also joined to demonstrate their projects. A working model of an Aquaponics system using a tank with tilapia and a grow bed with lettuce and basil resting on top, informed onlookers on ways to harvest both fish and vegetables sustainably. Many young kids were also enthralled by the demonstration on how to make biodiesel from used vegetable oil.

As for the Sustainable Fisheries team, the lionfish displayed prominently on the front table of the booth was a huge success, luring people in to ask questions about the invasive predator. For many children who passed by, this was the first lionfish they had ever seen. When asked if they had ever eaten lionfish, many of the visitors to the booth had never tried it, but the team encouraged people to start asking for lionfish in restaurants to increase the demand and create a more prominent fishery for lionfish. Some Bahamians and visitors were hesitant to try because of the venomous spines, but when they looked over the fillet guide on display, many people seemed to be interested in filleting and preparing their own lionfish in the future. A handful of people who spearfish told the team that whenever they see a lionfish they spear it because they know they are harmful to the reef. Most, however, did not know that they could eat lionfish and they were excited when they discovered they could eat the white and flaky lionfish meat.

Many women loved the idea of using lionfish fins to create earrings, and the younger groups passing by enjoyed touching the fins on display. Many of the children left the booth with face paintings of lionfish and sea creatures and kept coming back for more.

For those who signed up for The Cape Eleuthera Institute newsletter and weekly update, their names were entered into a raffle to win a “Lionfish Slayer: You Slay We Pay” t-shirt. Two lucky people received the shirts after two drawings, and pictured below is one of the winners, Ann Gates, a frequent visitor to Eleuthera.

ZNS, the local Bahamian news station, interviewed one member of the Sustainable Fisheries team about our projects on invasive lionfish. The segment will be shown to inform people who were not at Earth Day about the invasive predator, the destruction they are doing to the reefs, and ways that we can help with the invasion by eating and wearing lionfish!

Conch, Lionfish, Outreach, Sustainable Fisheries

Sustainable Fisheries team represents at Rock Sound Homecoming

April 13, 2015 teamcomm

This past Saturday, the Sustainable Fisheries team travelled to Rock Sound for the annual Homecoming to represent The Cape Eleuthera Institute. The booth, decorated with educational materials pertaining to invasive lionfish, was a success. Both locals and visitors approached the booth with questions and were intrigued by the live lionfish that was on display in a tank on the table.

CEI team manning the booth at Rock Sound Homecoming

As people wandered by, the team educated the curious onlookers about the venomous spines, how to properly remove the spines and fillet the fish, common misconceptions about the lionfish, as well as the damage they are doing to the reefs.

Kids come face to face with the invasive lionfish

The team also advertised the Slayer Campaign; this campaign incentivizes local fishermen to spear lionfish. The team emphasized how tasty lionfish are to eat, pointing out the “You Slay, We Pay” motto hanging from the tent next to the wonderful illustrations of grouper, conch, and crawfish holding up signs saying “Eat More’ Lionfish”..

The team wore their lionfish fin earrings to show off the beautiful jewelry that can be made from the non-venomous spines, so not only are lionfish tasty, but they can create beautiful, sustainable, jewelry.

Bags of sustainably grown lettuce from the CEI/CSD aquaponics system were handed out to also people about the other projects at The Cape Eleuthera Institute.

The Sustainable Fisheries team will have a similar booth set up for Earth Day and they hope to continue raising awareness about the different research projects happening at the Cape Eleuthera Institute and how to live sustainably.

Lionfish, SCUBA, Sustainable Fisheries

Lionfish Team Spring Survey Update

April 8, 2015 teamcomm

March weather was perfect for the lionfish team as they visited 16 different patch reef sites for their quarterly surveys, observing fish species and abundance in relation to the presence of lionfish. Of the 16 sites, we remove lionfish from 8 of them every 3 months, comparing the removal reefs with nonremoval reefs as a way to measure the impact of lionfish on the patch reef systems.

Shoal of yellow tail jacks came to say hi

At each patch all of the fish species present on the reef are counted for their relative abundance, especially the lionfish. Fish that compete for resources with lionfish, such as grunts, snapper, and grouper, are specifically noted along with their total body lengths. In addition to the roving survey and competitor observations, we also collected data on invertebrates, grouper, and parrotfish for three other studies. We counted the number of spiny lobster, queen conch, sea stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers on the reefs to add to a data set that will be part of an assessment for implementing a potential marine protected area.

The team still smiling after a 5 dive day

Throughout the course of the week of collecting data we saw an abundance of reef creatures, but most notably three nurse sharks, a large school of yellow jacks, a big eye which has remained on the same patch for over a year and is not commonly found on patch reefs, as well as a hawksbill sea turtle, also rarely sighted on these patches because they are critically endangered. Continue reading →

Lionfish, Research Programs

Slayer Campaign Update

April 1, 2015 teamcomm

Our local Bahamian fishermen recently brought in over 40 lbs. of lionfish to The Island School as part of the “You Slay, We Pay” campaign. The slayer campaign incentivizes Bahamians to fish for invasive lionfish.

One of 49 dissected and filleted lionfish

The lionfish are a healthy, locally sourced and sustainable fish choice for The Island School dining hall and also a great source of information. The whole lionfish brought in were dissected by the CEI lionfish research team, who dissected 49 of the fish to collect data on the weight, length, sex, and stomach contents of the fish.

The largest lionfish was 944 grams with a total length of 40 cm, close to the longest recorded lionfish which measured at 47cm. While the large size of the lionfish were impressive, so were the organisms found during the dissection in their stomachs.
One lionfish which was 22cm long had eaten a redband parrotfish of 10cm in length, thats almost half of its size! Other interesting finds included two lionfish who had exclusively crabs in their stomachs, and even a stomach containing lionfish spines!

Intern Alanna working through lionfish dissections

Lionfish fins drying to be made into jewelry

We look forward to the next batch of lionfish from our local fishermen to dissect and fillet for more insight into lionfish biology as well as the opportunity to eat these tasty sustainable invasives. Remember to eat and wear lionfish!

Educational Programs, Lionfish

The Lillian and Betty Ratner School Learns All About Lionfish

February 13, 2015 ceiblogger

lionfish dissection ratner — LREP Intern Alanna Waldman shows students from the Ratner School how to safely remove venomous lionfish spines.

This past week, visiting students from Ohio’s Lillian and Betty Ratner School spent a week at The Island School stretching their comfort zones and exploring what it means to live sustainably while simultaneously learning about the marine life of The Bahamas. As a part of their educational experience, the Ratner students listened attentively to Dr. Jocelyn Curtis-Quick, the head of the Lionfish Research and Education Program, present on the detrimental impact of the non-native lionfish on Caribbean marine ecosystems. The students learned that these fish, originally from the Indo-Pacific, are resilient creatures that can live in environments with a wide range of salinity, depth, and habitat conditions, are seldom predated upon by Caribbean natives, and as a result are ravaging reefs by consuming native fish and invertebrates. Such intense predation impedes important ecosystems services that otherwise keep the reefs healthy and alive.

lionfish spine dissection — LREP Research Assistant Alicia Hendrix describes envenomation mechanisms to listening students and shows them a lionfish spine close-up.

After viewing footage of bobbit worm predation in the lionfish’s native range, the school relocated to the CEI wet lab to assist Alanna and Alicia, an LREP intern and research assistant (respectively) with lionfish dissections. The students were able to point out the venomous spines of the lionfish: 13 dorsally located, 2 pelvic, and 3 anal. Once the fins were removed, the kids were enthralled with finding the heart and the otoliths of the fish, and looked on closely as the stomach was removed to check for stomach contents. Many of the students even ventured to touch the ocular lens of the eyeball as well as stick their fingers into the mouth and touch the gills. Continue reading →

Lionfish, Research Programs, SCUBA

The lionfish team completes year 5 of reef surveys

January 6, 2015 teamcomm

The lionfish team zipped up their 5mm wetsuits, donned their hoods, and braved the dropping water temperatures to conduct the 5th year of reef monitoring. It is well known that the presence of lionfish negatively affects the abundance and recruitment of fish on reefs, however, the secondary and long-term effects to is yet to be fully understood. It is the goal of these surveys to provide a data set that can answer these questions.

The team surveyed fish size and abundance at the 16 study reefs. They were excited to see the Big Eye fish again some three months after its initial sighting at the same site and exact same coral head. Additionally, the divers were armed with cameras and rugosity chains to assess the reefs benthic cover and complexity. We were pleased to see the reefs that were bleaching in September had started to recover. Less pleasing to see were the high densities of lionfish at the non-removal sites; one site had 20 lionfish in an area the size of a dining table!

These surveys contribute to one of the longest monitoring data sets that examine the effects of lionfish on reefs. Dr. Curtis-Quick along with collaborators Dr. Green, Dr. Cote and Lad Akins will be working up this data for a publication later in 2015. This monitoring is hoped to be continued in years to come and we wish to thank all the interns and volunteers who have assisted with the monitoring over the last five years. Special thanks to Alicia Hendrix, the current Research Assistant, who over the last year has made huge contributions to the lionfish team’s work.

Education, Research, Outreach