Why Lionfish Should Be Your Favorite Fish to Eat | Nat Geo Live

When I was 17, I was diving off the coast of South Florida and I saw the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. It had these bold stripes and these big dramatic spines. And I had no idea what it was. So I went to the dive master and he told me I had just seen a lionfish. And I was hooked. I started reading everything I could about this strange and beautiful fish and what I found completely astounded me. I had no idea that something so gorgeous could be causing such harm on our native reef ecosystems. Lionfish are what is known as an invasive species. And that's defined as a species that is non-native to its area and that is causing harm or is likely to cause harm.

Now, lionfish are originally from the Indo-Pacific region and they were introduced off the coast of South Florida in the mid 1980s. And most likely it was through an aquarium release. So, someone who had some pet lionfish didn't want to take care of them anymore and then just dumped them into the local waterways. So this is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, lionfish are prolific breeders. They can produce two million eggs over the course of one year and one lionfish and all of her offspring can produce 8.1 quintillion eggs in just three months. And the other thing is they are voracious predators. They're essentially like the hoover vacuums of the sea. They can eat anything up to half their size and unfortunately that includes a lot of the really cool interesting reef fish that we like to see on the reef as divers. To top it all off they have a series of venomous spines lining their back. This produces a very nasty neurotoxin that causes pain and swelling if you're stung. One of my interviewees told me that it won't kill you, but it will make you wish you were dead.

So, this is definitely not a fish that we want wandering around where it doesn't belong. And the more I read about this fish the more I realized that there was a lot of talk about the biology and ecology of lionfish. But really was—no one was diving into the kind of social implications of this fish. So, I went to South Florida and I found this incredible community that has completely rallied around the removal of this species using whatever resources they have at their disposal. For example, you have Bob and Maria Hickerson. They're located in South Florida and they would go in their free time, and try and remove as many lionfish as possible on their local reefs.

But they were getting so frustrated because they were leaving so many fish behind. So, they took some tools and random things they found at Home Depot and created the very first lionfish-specific spear gun. So, now you can remove them at a much faster rate. And then, Maria takes the spines and the fins and creates really beautiful pieces of lionfish jewelry. She then sells them to support the removal initiatives but also raise awareness about lionfish as an invasive species.

So, the great thing about lionfish is that they're actually delicious to eat, and that's something that John Mirabella, who lives in Marathon Key found out for himself. He would go out and remove lionfish in the morning and take it back to the restaurant he owned on Marathon and just experiment with all different types of recipes. So, here's lionfish sushi which I tried and it was delicious. And then I did run out of food money. I spent it all on diving. I have my priorities really messed up.

And so, I ended up eating lionfish for almost every meal for like two weeks... (laughs) which was totally barbaric. But it was delicious. And the great thing is that in John's restaurant he marketed that he was serving lionfish in the local newspapers and people were coming from all over the Keys to sample this fish which shows that even if people are removing them themselves they're excited to support initiatives that are.