July 6, 2018 — A garden full of poisonous, stinging lionfish — that’s what one diver said he found on the bottom offshore South Carolina.
The predators are taking over by the thousands, killing off snappers, groupers and other valued fish catches.
Traps to cut their numbers were first proposed three years ago. Now, literally billions of laid lionfish eggs later, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is about to give the go-ahead on a permit to set out 100 cages to study whether the traps can put a dent in their numbers.
None of the traps will be off South Carolina, where the original proposal called for some. But the study is at least a first step to maybe slowing down a fish that veteran Florida Keys trap fisherman Bill Kelly calls “the most aggressive invasive species that we’ll see in my lifetime.”
The lionfish is a seductively beautiful scorpion fish. It’s so colorfully camouflaged that it blends almost invisibly into the coral, like a rattlesnake blends into brush.