Alien Lionfish Off North Carolina Coast
The lionfish population has exploded at a pace unlike anything scientists have ever seen from an invasive fish species in this part of the world. They are appearing in huge numbers from here southward into the Caribbean and are so plentiful that divers off the North Carolina coast routinely find up to 100 on a single shipwreck.
Little research has been done on lionfish, and researchers at NOAA's Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in Beaufort, N.C., are rapidly becoming some of the world's leading experts as they respond to worried fisheries managers. It's feared that the newcomers are making life harder for already struggling popular commercial reef fish such as grouper and snapper by stealing their food, seizing their turf and eating their young.
"They're eating everything," said Lisa A. Mitchell, executive director of Reef Environmental Education Foundation, a Florida nonprofit group that is helping several Caribbean governments deal with the influx of lionfish. "They could wipe out entire reefs."..
