FREDERIKSTED — The waters around The Big Island have fewer unwanted visitors this week.
During this year’s St. Croix Lionfish Derby, teams removed 129 pounds and 14 ounces of the invasive fish during 118 diver hours. The recreational division bagged 266 lionfish and the commercial division came home with 249.
“Lionfish hunting is a double-edged sword,” CORE Education and Outreach Director Matthew Sims said during an awards ceremony on Sunday afternoon at Leatherback Brewing Company. “Because the more successful that you are as a hunter, it’s concerning because the ecological makeup of the biodiversity on the reef is not as good as it should be.”
“We should be celebrating people coming back with zero fish,” he added.
Lionfish caught over the weekend make a return appearance as the featured ingredient in a ceviche with passionfruit, pepper, green onion, racao and lime juice prepared by Elizabeth Gallo. Photo by KIT MACAVOY
Though native to the Indo-Pacific, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and others have speculated that the peculiar-looking fish were introduced to the Atlantic by people emptying the contents of their home aquariums into public waters. Because they’re not native, they have very few predators.
According to CORE’s website, the first lionfish seen in U.S. Virgin Islands waters was recorded off St. John in 2008, with sightings off of St. Croix and St. Thomas the following years. Year-to-date, Sims said they’ve recorded 1,543 removals from territorial waters.
This year’s derby was a little different, as team sizes were increased from four to six divers. The competition also allowed for different blends of Nitrox, because Sims said St. Croix has particularly steep underwater terrain.
“So it provides an additional challenge for divers depth-wise, but it also provides the reef structures that allow lionfish to thrive,” he said.
Above, CORE Foundation Education and Outreach Director Matthew Sims shows off the 2024 St. Croix Lionfish Derby rash guard during an awards presentation on Sunday afternoon at Leatherback Brewing Company. At right, lionfish caught over the weekend make a return appearance as the featured ingredient in a ceviche with passion fruit, pepper, green onion, racao and lime juice prepared by Elizabeth Gallo. (Photo by KIT MACAVOY)
Chris McWatters said he’s been hunting lionfish on St. Croix for four years. During this year’s derby he and his team — “Don’t Funk It Up” — removed 126 of the pests. McWattes’s said the abundance of people with spears on the island and the ability to dive year-round helps keep the lionfish population in check.
“I think everybody’s pretty proactive on preserving our reefs because we all know lionfish are pretty detrimental to our reefs” and native wildlife, he said. “And what they’re doing is they’re destroying that area. So if we can at least control that, then maybe we can help our reefs.”
At least some of the fish McWatters and his colleagues removed made a return appearance on Sunday afternoon.
Elizabeth Gallo used her expertise in cooking with local ingredients to serve lionfish ceviche with passion fruit, green onions, racao, lime juice and pepper.
“It’s a white fish, similar to like wahoo or mahi or something like that, and it’s pretty versatile,” she said, and its lack of a strong “fishy” flavor makes it palatable to a wide range of people. Gallo also recommended frying lionfish beer batter, but cautioned that it can be easy to overcook.
People handling lionfish also have to get past the venomous spines that give the fish their distinctive look.
“So you really have to be careful when you’re processing them,” Gallo said. “And the smaller fish don’t yield a lot of meat, so you really want a bigger fish, to be worth going through the whole thing of cutting off the fin and skinning and gutting it and everything else.”
This year’s derby was co-sponsored by the Department of Planning and Natural Resources as well as the Buccaneer, SCUBA, the Invasive Fin, Cane Bay Partners, Leatherback Brewing Company and Salt River Marina.
By KIT MACAVOY/V.I. Daily News