Another Pacific lionfish caught in V.I. waters
By JOY BLACKBURN, US Virgin Islands Daily News
Tuesday, January 12th 2010

ST. CROIX - Divers on Sunday spotted another Pacific lionfish in St. Croix waters - this time in Salt River Canyon - and on Monday, hunted down the fish and speared it.

It was the 10th Pacific lionfish - a non-native predatory fish capable of devastating coral reefs - captured in the waters off St. Croix since the first Pacific lionfish was captured just more than a year ago, said William Coles, chief of environmental education with the V.I. Department of Planning and Natural Resources' Fish and Wildlife Division.

Biologists fear that the Pacific lionfish will wreak havoc on the territory's marine ecosystem and economy by decimating the fish population, impacting both coral reefs and fisheries - and tourism.

A striking, striped fish with fan-like fins and venomous dorsal spines, the Pacific lionfish is a non-native species - not the scorpionfish that is sometimes called a "lionfish" locally - and has no natural predators in the Caribbean.

A native of the western Pacific, the lionfish has a voracious appetite for smaller fish and can severely affect coral reefs by depleting fish that are necessary players in reefs' fragile ecosystems. Studies done in the Bahamas showed drastic drops in the density of native fish species on coral reefs after lionfish appeared in the area.

This fall, a diverse group of private citizens, government agencies and nonprofits came together to draw up a lionfish management plan for the territory, which is now in place.

A group of professional and recreational divers also has been going out on a regular basis to systematically search for the fish in the waters around St. Croix, the only one of the Virgin Islands with confirmed lionfish sightings so far.

A dive class on the west wall of Salt River Canyon spotted the juvenile Pacific lionfish on Sunday under a coral outcropping and the instructor, Michelle Pugh of Dive Experience, placed a marker at the opening of an underwater cave where she last saw the lionfish, Coles said.

She then notified the Anchor Dive Center boat, which was assisting with a lionfish search nearby, but divers had already reached their diving limits and could not go down again, Coles said.

He was notified.

Monday morning just after sunrise, he dove the area with Glenn Marshino, Sean Corsant and Bob Jemsen of Anchor Dive Center.

They found the fish 117 feet down, within 2 feet of the marker that Pugh placed on Sunday, Coles said.

They devised a plan to capture the fish.

"Of course, it had other ideas," Coles said, noting that the fish managed to keep itself well-protected.

Corsant eventually was able to flush the creature out toward Coles, who speared it as it swam past a cave opening.

Coles said the fact that the fish is a juvenile - about 4 Â inches long - is significant.

The Pacific lionfish captured off St. Croix since the first one in November 2008 have been gradually getting larger, as though they were hatched from the same group of eggs and were maturing.

However, this one was much smaller than the others caught recently, indicating that there may have been another introduction of the fish into V.I. waters, or that the fish already here have reached reproductive age and are reproducing, Coles said.

Anyone who spots a Pacific lionfish should mark the area and notify Coles at 773-1082 or 643-0800 on St. Croix or call 693-1393 on St. Thomas or 693-8950 ext. 240 on St. John.

For more information about the Pacific lionfish, go to the DPNR Fish and Wildlife website at www.fw.dpnr.vi.gov.

Coles said that keeping the Pacific lionfish population under control in the territory is a major factor in the future health of the local marine ecosystems and economy.

"People don't realize yet what a major problem this could be," he said.

This is Lionfish #10

More information on the USVI - DPNR- Division of Fish and Wildlife website

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