Dear Source:
all we need now is someone with good intentions confusing people as to what is a lion fish, there has only been one lion fish found in the waters of st croix, there are how ever many scorpion fish a native species, it is a local fish that has been here since before man arrived and our local fish are well adapted to its hunting methods, it uses camouflage to sit on the bottom and wait for something to get close, yes it has poisonous spines. But it is not a lion fish!!! Our confirmed capture of a lion fish is the first of its kind…it doesn't need clouds of dough as to what it will do, make no mistake if a breeding population of lion fish were here in the waters of st croix 5 years ago then today there would be thousands found. again i will remind people what lion fish do–one lion fish uses 79% of the resources of the reef it lives on–lion fish breed monthly producing up to 30,000 eggs–lion fish dominate ever other species it encounters in the Caribbean having no natural predators. It has only take ten years to infest the entire Bahamas chain–up to the Carolinas and down as far as the lesser Antilles, because st croix is isolated by deep water the lion fish would either have to be imported or brought by a ship, if it get established here it will only take 5 years to be the dominant species in our water and could actually destroy so many other fish species it would have to eat its own species to survive. so Mr. Hazen with all due respect in the face of what could happen be factual and don't make statements that cant be proven as fact, what is fact is lion fish have destroyed may fish populations in the Caribbean and it has become so numerous that it cant be eradicated, if we make a mistake lets make it on the side of prevention lets not wait until we cant do anything about it as is the case in the Bahamas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Cuba, perto Rico, Haiti, Dominican republic, caimans, Turks and cacaos they also had a so what attitude about lion fish and look what its gotten them.
Above all lets protect the waters around st croix unlike all those places we have no way to replenish our fish populations.
Paul Vrabcak
Frederiksted, St. Croix
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