Hello all Seahunters

No, I didn’t get out to check the reef. But I do have something interesting to tell you.

A seahunter wrote to let me know that some divers in Georgia have positively identified Lionfish on one of the nearshore reefs. The positive identification came when the diver speared the fish and brought it to the surface. We call that a negative-positive identification. He should have caught it and brought it up alive. You know the rule: only kill what you are going to eat. I wrote the newspaper article author to find out how they prepared it and how it tasted. She said they didn’t eat it. The seahunters knew this already. While we were diving one day out of Daytona, Andy came up and said he had spent half his dive trying to catch two lionfish. A year earlier I had come up talking about a lionfish, but the guys were skeptical. Now we all know.

The Moose

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DIVERS CONFIRM LIONFISH LURKING

BRUNSWICK -- The discovery of a venomous species of saltwater fish at some reefs off the Georgia coast is causing concern among state and federal marine biologists.

Lionfish, brightly colored predatory fish with zebra-like stripes and long poison-filled fin spines, have been reported at sites in deep coastal waters offshore from St. Simons Island to Savannah, according to state marine biologists.

To read this story in full, please visit

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/020902/met_8573352.html

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The Florida boys knew this already.

http://floridamarine.org/features/view_article.asp?id=14923

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