"SC Lionfish Diet" Master's Thesis

Hello everyone!

I’m a student in the Graduate Program in Marine Biology at the College of Charleston, and I’m studying the diet of invasive lionfish in SC waters. Any help you all could provide - from letting me know about where you’re seeing them to giving me the stomachs of any you may catch (feel free to keep the meat - they have a white, flaky flesh similar to black sea bass - tasty!) - would be greatly appreciated!

We already know that lionfish pose a threat to local game fish species by competing for food, but I’m also trying to figure out if lionfish are actually eating juveniles of important game fish species, too. And many of these important game fishes are overfished as adults, so if we’re short on reproductive adults AND losing babies before they can become reproductive (either through direct consumption or via starvation due to competition), we’ll have a real crisis on our hands.

So let’s see if we can get rid of these buggers! Please feel free to email me (smdoty@g.cofc.edu)!

Thanks for any and all help! :smiley:
~Sarah

very cool study…wish you the best…be careful and hopefully you get some good ■■■■■■■■ from the members of this forum…

The Morris Island Lighthouse www.savethelight.org

Email sent.

just curious…
how do you know that many of the “gamefish” are locally overfished as adults? Is your thesis based on local interaction or is this a broader scope encompassing the south atlantic blight region as a whole?

Is it possible that assumption is just as unproven as your hypothesis regarding prey-predator interaction between lionfish and juvie fish?

Also, many of our “gamefish” don’t go through their juvenile stages off our coast. MARMAP has a lot of data supporting this conclusion, and I personally have a small data set from fishing offshore and talking with folks who fish elsewhere that also support that conclusion.

Much of the snapper and grouper juvie lifestage habitat is south of here, and there’s migration caused by ocean currents as well as food & water temps, etc. as you probably already know. Lots of literature on this if you care.

May want to consider these phenomena in your thesis as well as the fact that your findings may or may not lead to a different conclusion if you are placing any subjective weight on the opinion that some species’ adult specimens are being “overfished” here.

Thanks for your experimental goals. You should get lots of help from folks here! We all want to help, and most of us understand that an invasive and aggressive (relative term) species is not healthy for our environment at all. Measuring this is a very good idea worthy of all our attention for sure.

I hope you do not take my comments the wrong way. Only trying to help because there seems to be a large disconnect between what a certain group of scientists has concluded or wants to conclude and what other scientists and those of us on the water are seeing.


www.scmarine.org

www.joinrfa.com

Luke 8:22-25

I assume you’re the student that contacted us about the Lionfish Rodeo and spearfishing tourney we’re having in October? If so, that would probably be your best bet for getting lionfish guts. There are quite a few of us that dive that target lionfish regularly. Divers are your best bet for a constant supply. I know Victor at lowcounty scuba does quite a bit of lionfish shooting. Check with him for a Charleston connection. And seriously consider getting involved in the tournament. We’d love CofC as a sponsor.

Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”

Read my mind Phin…

Second That,lionfish-kill’m all

the over abundance of large Black Sea Bass will and do eat more small reef fish than the lionfish will ever eat. Every large BSB pukes up baby B-liners when they hit the deck.

.

NMFS = No More Fishing Season

“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”

quote:
So let's see if we can get rid of these buggers! Please feel free to email me (smdoty@g.cofc.edu)!

One of my best friends is the Director of Aquaculture at the University of Florida and he started the first real study of lionfish in the US. He spent a week with me in the Keys last month and took back about 40 live lionfish to the UF lab to raise in tanks. They are trying to determine the life cycle, breeding habits, food, etc., with the goal being to either determine if they are really a threat and if so how to safely eradicate them, or determine they are not a threat and let nature take it’s course.

According to him, almost nothing is known about them scientifically, but he is changing that as we speak.

With his permission I can give you his contact info, he is a wealth of information and probably knows more about them than anyone else in the world today.

Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
Marine Surveying & Repair

Divers killing them off is like pissing on a forest fire as a solution. Sure every little bit helps but there are just way too many on every rock, wreck, and sea fan from 60-200+.

Ive always wondered if there is a way to design a trap that takes advantage of their long spines. I may have to put some in a tank and try a few ideas.

Rob Harding
236 Sailfish 200 hpdi
Charleston diving
http://www.charlestondiving.com
(Fish not Biting? Try a fast presentation of spring steel)</font id=“green”>

Im with Sells on this one,nothin more aggresive than BSB. Seems like protecting them,{BSB} would desimate everything around them.

oh yeah,DEATH TO LIONFISH!!

quote:
Originally posted by CharlestonDiving

Ive always wondered if there is a way to design a trap that takes advantage of their long spines.

Rob Harding
236 Sailfish 200 hpdi
Charleston diving
http://www.charlestondiving.com
(Fish not Biting? Try a fast presentation of spring steel)</font id=“green”>


Wait, didn't I give you that idea? :smiley: