Whole Foods stores in Florida sell lionfish for $11.99 per pound. Any form of harvest helps also meet a current demand for lionfish as a delicacy. The purse trap deploys in depths beyond 150 feet. Spearfishing works in shallow water, but lionfish live deeper. Lionfish reduce native populations significantly.” Testing the trap in a pool. “Sometimes other fish will eat lionfish, but not at a rate that has a conservation benefit and that’s what worries me. “Control of lionfish in deep water isn’t happening right now,” Gittings says. While the lionfish invasion has garnered a lot of attention from media and conservation organizations, effective control remains a challenge. Anything that floats off the bottom and creates structure attracts fish.” Anybody could find materials on hand to attract live fish. I’ve seen bamboo in the center instead of lattice. “If we’re really honest about this, almost anything works. “There’s no real magic to the lattice other than it’s easy to retrieve and replace if it breaks,” Gittings says. The net closes as the trap rises bringing admittedly beautiful lionfish with it. When they’re snugged up to it, just pull the trap up. Lionfish can’t seem to resist the lure of the lattice. Drop a purse trap in the water and when it hits the ocean floor the net sides, attached to a frame of jaws, fall open as plastic lattice lifts vertically in the middle. Gittings designed the purse trap after studying pop-up Christmas cards, the kind that have a 3-D surprise that unfolds upright when you open the card. “It doesn’t use any live bait, yet a fair amount of lionfish were there.” © Alex Fogg Inspiration from Hallmark “It was incredible when we went back a few days later to check the trap. He released his findings in the journal PLOS ONE in August. He performed underwater tests on the contraption built by Gittings. Harris studies ecosystem models at the university’s Nature Coast Biological Station. I saw what Steve built and knew it would meet that criteria.” “For it to be widely implemented, you need to be able to build a lot of them and do it cheap. They have to be economically feasible for fishermen to use,” says Holden Harris, University of Florida postdoctoral research scientist. “I love seeing new ideas, but I’m skeptical they’ll ultimately work out. He prefers purse trap because the device looks like a coin purse with its two net halves clasped tightly together when snapped closed around lattice.
Gittings is the mastermind behind the purse trap, which anyone (other than him) calls the Gittings trap. An invasive lionfish caught by a spear fisher, Pedro Bank, Jamaica. Many methods have been tried, but the lattice fencing offers a new way to target the fish in deep water. From North Carolina to South America, the striped predator with venomous spines and a voracious appetite eats native fish in substantial numbers.Īttracting, and trapping, a fish as invasive as lionfish requires intense effort. By 2009, lionfish were established along the Atlantic coast and spreading elsewhere. Native to the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, lionfish eat more than 50 species of fish and a female releases about 2 million eggs annually.Īccording to NOAA, the first lionfish captured in the Atlantic Ocean was documented in 1985 near Florida, most likely an aquarium castoff. Lionfish have become a significant invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean. With lionfish, it doesn’t matter if there’s bait. “They’re highly attracted to structure, more so than other fish. “From the start, we knew almost any structure would attract lionfish,” says Steve Gittings, NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries chief scientist. Lionfish have no idea what they’re in for. It’s lattice fencing and it’s nothing new to neighborhoods. Vines wrap around it on your front porch and varmints try to get around it under your back deck. The traditional pattern is a square or diamond weave.
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