Why traditional  

'Eighteen Venomous Spines' sounds like a thrash metal album title.

Anyone else getting a bunch of lionfish shorts all of a sudden?

For all of those that simply think ‘’I’ll just release my pet into the wild’’ You are the problem

My family has visited the abacos every year or 2 for 15 years. The lionfish problem exploded there for a couple years. Locals started a "lionfish derby" every year with various prizes. I havent seen a lionfish in the area in 2 years.

Once the lion fish are speared & their 18 venomous spines are cut off - can the carcasses be left for other reef life to eat?

Fun fact: these lion fish are actually not native and became an invasive species for the reefs of Colombia. The lionfish were imported with the intention of controlling the local parrotfish population that had been eroding the reef since their is coral. These lionfish quickly became so successful that the government subsidized hunting them with a bounty and restaurants began to serve them on their menus, but due to their spines and general structure, they are very difficult to prepare and never quite caught on as a staple food item.

Everyfish gangsta till the divers get deep sea licences

Why are there so many comments against hunting them? Because they find them pretty? Lion fish were introduced to areas they never lived before by humans. They have very few predators and are out competing the local fish, damaging the ecosystem.

If they give a proper incentive to hunting these fish the numbers would drop a lot faster and it’s a prime opportunity to help the less fortunate fisherman

I am actively losing braincells over the number of people here who don't understand what "invasive" means and are arguing against hunting them 😭 like, not understanding why lionfish are threatening the native creatures in the Atlantic is fine, but there's so many comments explaining what's so bad about lionfish and why they're being hunted. All you have to do is look up "why are lionfish bad" and everything is there. Stopping attempts to hunt them is literally going to destroy those ecosystems.

I seen people train sharks to eat them by spearing and feeding them to the sharks.

I used to spear them down in Florida. They taste very good. As a matter fact, Whole Foods in lighthouse point sells them if you’re interested.

They are still a major issue in the Caribbean 😢

The amount of people here not knowing what invasive means hurts my brain.

We used to catch these fish on hooks all the time. Used smelt guts as bait.

I remember when the internet was outraged with the hunting of lionfish, stating it's not possible for animal to ever be invasive and to let them be. Now look on to the damages to the ecosystem of this local places and the economy of those who depend on it for a living. It's beyond sad what all this bleeding heart attitude can affect those less fortunate.

Have caught a few on hook and most people don’t believe me, and the eating is worth the effort to catch them

Maybe people should be encouraged to eat them. It's possible that many people falsely believe that being venomous means their flesh is poisonous.

*Takeaway:* stop dumping pet trade animals outside in the environment. Better yet, stop importing exotic animals, the environmental price is just too high.

If you watch deer meat for dinner, it’s actually extremely easy, they barely move, they have no predators so they fear nothing and just swim up close and whack with the Hawaiian sling, bagged out in like 15mins…

"Traditional fishing methods don't work. They don't usually go for bait on hooks." Yeah, right! Every time I go fish with a pole and shrimp bait, I snag one.

Anyone else think of the new girl episode where Schmidt wants a lion fish so badly lololol

its funny lionfish is a pest in america and you can hunt them, when in places like australia a small lionfish cost alot of money in pet stores

Set up a white picket fence under water, and they will crowd around them making them ez to catch

Wonder what lion fish spear fisher pays...

Do lionfish emit some sort of pheromone for mating? If so, they could be attracted in mass to large fish nets to catch them. A similar thing could be done for the anacondas on the Everglades.

They are a delicious fish.

no way the numbers dropped after they were hunter XD

These Hunters are assisting lion fish with selective evolution, they will eventually be flourishing at deeper depth than ever before

In Florida a bounty is on them

Lionfish are so pretty but there invasive so keep harvesting them

Was working on a shrimp boat off west coast of Florida near Hernando Beach back around 2013’ish. We were dragging in like 25ft water and pulled up a big lion fish. Took it home in a cooler put it in a salt tank. The sea horses in the tank anchored themselves to the poor lion by wrapping their tails around its fins. One day we realized the lion was stuck/wedged in the tank rocks and had passed away😢 idk what happened but I wonder if it was seeking refuge from the seahorses and got trapped in the rocks 🤷‍♀️

"oH mY gOd! WhY aRe YoU kILlInG aNiMaLs!" I swear people these days are just dumb . Which really surprises me as everyone is carrying around a damn super computer in their pocket.

When I was in the Redsea in Egypt giant Lionfish we’re all over the reefs… easy to get to for harvesting if I had known then that they were that bad I would have just trapped and released them for the rest of the hungry fish.. also around there the sea urchins are everywhere destroying the reefs… we would crack open a couple here and there to attract the other fishes to watch them!

As a Chinese descendent, I am sorry to learn about this invasive species and at the same time relieved to hear that it is not called Chinese Lion Fish (a'la Chinese mitten crab). Whew! I sincerely hope that this invasive specie is contained.

They taste great

I want to eat a lionfish taco or sandwich

Puerto Rico needs Lionfish fishermen.

DARLENE & HER FIRST HUSBAND HAD 2 OF THESE FISH

Capt. Picard wouldn't be too happy about this

Easily one of the tastiest fish!! Tomato, spring onions, salt, water, ginger, green chillis 😢😢

Its a delicious fish.

"Since they started hunting in this area numbers have dropped" Gee, I wonder why?

Their eggs can travel long distances in ocean currents so it’s gonna take a lot of work in the entire Caribbean to manage the populations

This reminds me of a childhood friend who released his pet goldfish into the ocean. Different result, but same origin story.

Soft plastics work best for these lion fish Jerk shad Paddletails Etc As know here in south africa While ultra light fishing a friend of mine hooked on Not even 30 mins later he got another and i still have the pictures to prove it Strangest day ever

They're also quite delicious and some counties have bounties on this invasive species

Bade man

I caught one on a rod in Morocco once

But... spear fishing is in fact, traditional fishing. The Short should've been worded differently.

I heard Lion fish are really delicious to eat 🍽️I wonder if we could use diving drones to reach where rec drivers cannot.

Wait, are these an invasive species that they are trying to get rid of? That context is missing

They’re delicious!

That's a spicy fish roll!

Heard that lionfish are delicious. While it hopefully should not be a sustainable longterm plan, lionfish caught can be sold off as a delicacy. Just need to be prepared safely first.

I want to buy one.....and I wont throw em away.....promise 😊😊

Convince one or two chinese celebrity chef to create a delicacy around this, we will be seeing videos on lionfish conservation really soon

I would enjoy that job

I saw a video of a guy using a Glock underwater

i hear they taste great

Lion fish are delicious 😋

Santa Marta mention 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Thought the thumbnail was from a game

They make damn good tacos

Trident time!!

Are they edible?

They are also one of the more tasty fish. They remind me of halibut meat.

They must be delicious....😊

If you're a driver you can go on trips to spear these fish yourself if you wanted

The lion fish is good too

Good.

This is just going to push for a divergent evolutionary path of lion fish who avoid shallow waters.

Are they safe to eat?

I catch them on rod and reel in Florida. What are you talking about?

What would be the Lion Fishes natural predator?

Ok so why don't they go for bait on a hook?

No bag limit

You can eat them only if you know what you're doing.

Sounds like they're going to evolve to prefer being deeper.

Delicious to eat!!!

I hear they taste good

They _are_ delicious though

They’re supposed to be incredible as sashimi.

I didn’t know they would go down to 1000ft deep yeah we aren’t getting these things out of the Caribbean

Haven't people introduced the lionfish to sharks in the area? And the sharks have since been seen to eat the lionfish?

They are tasty!

People say oh they poisonous? Let's chow down 😂

You can jig fish these things, no problem

It's not expensive if you freedive

Saying traditional method for line and reel is crazy to me

Not that expensive when tourists do it for free...

Those fishhhhh

The fish are too deep for divers. That's why divers spear them. 🤔

this is a lost battle

Bro skewered a bunch of them on one spear. Businessmen, get on top of your game. Lionfish Kebab food stand…..

Glock makes a handgun made to shoot underwater, it’s wild hunting lionfish with a Glock!

So does the Gov't where they are require tags n licenses to catch lionfish? Where i live we have an issue with prussian carp and for some stupid reason, we're required to have a license and have to use a plain J hook with a maggot or worm, instead of actually dealing with the problem properly and just allowing anybody to catch them in any way possible with no limits Ya know, the Gov't way.

I didn't realize spear fishing wasn't a traditional method.

Let's go guys 👍

Why am I seeing a lot of these lionfish videos these days?