Invasives: If you can't beat em... eat em...

photo via Wikipedia

A quote from a recent article via IPSNewsnet.com about increased Lionfish numbers off of the coast of Jamaica:

"Agriculture and Fisheries minister Christopher Tufton is already leading an aggressive public education campaign to get Jamaicans eating lionfish. Television programmes, videos of high-profile locals like Prime Minister Bruce Golding enjoying meals of lionfish, and some of the hotel industry's most decorated chefs preparing what Tufton describes as "good food" are broadcast regularly. Tufton believes that Jamaicans can eat their way out of the lionfish problem. "I believe the way to control the lionfish is to promote its consumption. We are going to bring in chefs who know how to prepare them and we are going to eat them," Tufton said at the start of the campaign."

No word yet on how they taste with a nice jerk sauce and a Red Stripe...

Asian Carp within 8 Miles of the Great Lakes?

Asian Carp have been detected beyond an electric barrier designed to keep them out of the Great lakes - from JSOnline.com:

The Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged Friday that tests taken earlier this fall revealed 32 positive DNA samples for Asian carp above the electric fish barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, some within about eight miles of the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

The Journal Sentinel first reported the apparent barrier breach Thursday, though the Army Corps refused to acknowledge it until Friday morning.

There now appears to be nothing left standing between the supersized, ecosystem-ravaging fish and the world's largest freshwater system other than the constantly swinging gates of two busy navigation locks, and it may be only a matter of time until the fish are jumping and flopping in Lake Michigan waters from Chicago to Door County - and beyond.

"It's a disaster," said Dan Thomas, president of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council. "Heads should roll for this."

Reader Harry Campbell writes with a call for action:

"This is a genuine environmental crisis, and the Army Corps of Engineers should close the lock on the Calumet River and chemically cleanse the waterway as soon as possible, and not cave in to barge operators who oppose the closure. Please use whatever influence you or your publication can bring to bear to help make sure the Corps of Engineers moves quickly ­ before it's too late."

Alt View: Snakehead Eradication in Arkansas

Bryan Hendricks of the Northwest Arkansas News takes a tongue in cheek look at the recent eradication of a colony of invasive northern snakehead from the pro-snakehead point of view.

Those who knew them say the snakeheads were some of the most industrious, hardest-working fish they ever met. Some also say they were delicious, much more so than their distant cousins, the bowfins, which, coincidentally, endure their own indignities in the form of slurs such as "cypress trout" and the spiteful and demeaning "choupique."

It is true that leaders of the snakehead community expressed a desire to someday migrate into the White River watershed, where the full promise and potential of the American Dream awaited. That proved too much for the AGFC, which quickly deployed its armed forces to squash this exodus before it mobilized.

The rest of the article is certainly worth reading with our favorite qoute being:

Sadly, the snakehead seems to have gone the way of the ivorybill woodpecker, just as Brinkley was on the eve of launching a marketing campaign proclaiming itself "Snakehead Capital of the South."

A Lion is loose in the City

Photo: Wikipedia

The Editorial Trophy Wife sends a link to an article in the News and Observer that will either make Carolina coastal anglers watch their step or set off the next big thing in extreme saltwater angling. Beautiful but posion Lionfish are swarming the Carolina coast.

"If you go deeper than 100 feet, they're ubiquitous now," said Paula Whitfield, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Beaufort. "They're absolutely everywhere

Unhooking them might be the extreme part of the equation when dealing with the venomous fish. However, they might have a place on the dinner table:

The researchers are joining forces with sport divers and even culinary instructors from Carteret Community College to see if the critters can be kept in check with spears, nets and tartar sauce.
Lionfish, it turns out, have a sweet, white meat similar to the tasty groupers and snappers they are threatening.