Sandals Grenada encourages guests to hunt invasive lionfish

Lionfish. Image: Laszlo Ilyes
Biodiversity

At Sandals Grenada, resort guests can get actively involved in combatting the lionfish invasion in the Caribbean:

At Sandals Grenada, guests with scuba certifications are encouraged to hunt fish — lionfish, specifically — on their holiday. The species is the cane toad of the Caribbean, invasive and multiplying at lightning speed, destroying reefs and commercial fishing industries. The fish has no natural predators and eats marine life 50% bigger than its own body. It will consume any living underwater creature it can fit inside its mouth, stuffing its stomach with more than 30 fish at a time. They also have venomous spines that, according to those who have been stung, are painful beyond belief.

“We have a couple different ways we try to get guests involved [with conservation efforts],” Jonathan Hernould, environmental officer for Sandal’s philanthropic Sandals Foundation, said in an interview. (Mic traveled to Grenada on a trip hosted by Sandals Resorts). “We offer a lionfish hunting dive to our diving guests where they can go out with our dive team and catch, hunt and kill as many lionfish as possible.” Guests are taught to use specialized equipment, including pole spears and zoo keepers, which are plastic boxes in which to store the fish. These vacationers pay $50 to partake in one of these lionfish spear sessions. “The money goes directly back to the Sandals Foundation and lionfish programs we have around the Caribbean,” Hernould said.

For more, read the complete article at Mic.

[Image: Laszlo Ilyes]

No Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease in the Cayman Islands. Photo: Cayman Islands Department of Environment, via Cayman Compass.
Oceans
Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease detected in the Cayman Islands

The Cayman Islands Department of Environment has discovered several incidences of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, the devastating infection that was first discovered on Florida’s coral reefs in 2014 and has since spread across the Caribbean region. Cayman Compass reports: Cayman’s reefs are under attack from the mysterious, but deadly …

CCI-CBF Week 2020.
Biodiversity
CCI-CBF Week: Nature-Based Solutions for our Caribbean Future

The Caribbean Challenge Initiative (CCI) and the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) will be hosting the 2020 instalment of their annual CCI-CBF Week as a virtual event this year, from July 13 to 16, 2020. The theme of the 2020 CCI-CBF week is Nature-Based Solutions for our Caribbean Future, and there …

Parrotfish. Image: Acquarius Sea Tours
Biodiversity
Conserving fish biodiversity helps protect coral reef health

Research from the Dominican Republic shows how greater fish biodiversity makes for healthier coral reefs: The health of coral reefs can be impacted as much by the diversity of fish that graze on them as by the amount of fish that do so, according to a new study by scientists …