Good thing of today is that the fish tavern bought the big ones. For a weak kiloprice, but heh, was planning to start donating fish for free, so I'm happy. All my friend's freezers are already full and I eat this fish so much that I'm starting to dislike it, so hopefully he likes them and places them on the menu, then I can step up the cleaning of the area.
The tavern-owner said the fish were 'ok' to him. (probably doesn't know how to cook fish...) He won't be selling them when he can sell snapper, swordfish and grouper. He also told me 'you should try catching something else', and when I answered that with a resolute 'No.' and explained that we shouldn't hunt other species, many of which are threatened or endangered, at least until we stabilise this situation he had to agree, yet he continues as he was.
It's moments like these that I want to give up, and be as ignorant as the rest. Oh it must be so nice to not give a fuck. To my depressed brain this would be heaven, but I can't.
We need a manipulation campaign to convince people they are a delicacy. That would clear it up as fast as anything.
It is too bad though because they probably live deep. Any clearing anyone does will just get reinfested from the deeper areas.
Here one of the biggest hurdles is that spearfishing only exists as recreational fishing. So even if you would get a commercial license, which are horribly expensive, you still wouldn't be able to hunt lionfish. So we can get people to taste the fish at these small scale public events, but there will never be commercial demand as the supply is by law impossible to establish.
Yes this also means that most of the groupers in the fish tavernas are backdoor-sales from recreational spearfishermen.
They have been found quite deep indeed. But as far as my observation goes, the greatest concentrations are found in shallow (<15m) water, mainly at headlands with plenty of rocks that provide shelter from the waves. Aka the typical nursing area.
I noticed at places that I keep free of lionfish since December that there is much more life and diversity than in other areas. But indeed, if I skip a week I'm then greeted by a sizeable pack of lionfish. Lionfish are very much like radioactive waste. We're stuck with it for quite a big part of the future and we can't just leave it. We messed it up so it's our responsibility to do what we can to keep the damage under control. Ofc 'we' means the idiots exploiting the Suez canal, who are laughing at us from they gold plated yachts. But as they don't care about the mess they make, I now try to do my part in fixing it. Cleaning up after them.... I hate this world.
The best way at the moment would be to exempt the lionfish from the ban on the sale of recreationally caught fish. It would: give the poor parts of the society a temporary income; stimulate people to go into the water and exercise; make sure that 'the last lionfish' would be caught as well; and best of all: it wouldn't hurt the commercial fishing, in fact it would safeguard their existence!
But that would require a politician to get off his arse and do something, which is not going to happen.