Lionfish have this mystique about them,
in the fact that it's beautiful, it's venomous,
but the true danger with them is the fact
that they're consuming all these little fish
that they're not supposed to be consuming.
Lionfish is a fish that usually lives
in the Indo-Pacific, but has actually been
introduced into the Atlantic, and is causing
major problems for fish populations.
Pandora's Box has already been opened. They're here to stay.
There are certain species of fish
that will probably disappear because of lionfish.
The only thing that really is going to keep lionfish
in check in the Atlantic is going to be human activity.
We've got this problem fish, let's eat 'em.
I'm going to show you on the chart where we're going to go.
So right now we're here, you have Bermuda,
you've got the reef platform here,
but that reef line is what protects us from being
battered from storms, winds, and waves.
We're going to try and get up into the lee
of the island, jump in, grab some lionfish.
We'll clean the fish and then bring them
back to St. George's into Wahoo's and catch up with Alfred.
(fast rhythmic music begins)
Well lionfish are originally from the Indo-Pacific,
but a lot of the evidence points to the pet shop trade.
Little Billy's too big for his tank,
oh, we'll just let one go,
it doesn't seem like there'd be a problem.
That happens a few times
and bang, you got a breeding population.
Lionfish are spawning very quickly.
They're starting to spawn at about six months
to a year old, whereas it takes three to five years
for those native species to get to
the size and age they're able to spawn.
And also they're dumping about 30,000 eggs
one to two times a month.
Lionfish don't really seem to have many predators.
They have no fear and, you know, understand
that they've got this venom to protect themselves.
In the Atlantic, we've got what was called prey naiveté,
and the fact that our juvenile fish
have never seen lionfish and don't see them as a threat.
Our small fish actually see them
as potentially something to hide next to.
Because they're growing so fast,
because they're spawning so fast,
because they're eating so much, it is
a nightmare fish for the Atlantic.
(water rushing)
- Education is key.
And then, the more people know about this problem,
and obviously are comfortable in the water,
the more we can have people tackling and dealing with this.
Kwe teaches the premiere course,
so he thankfully has really introduced this idea
of going and tackling this problem to so many people.
- An estimate of probably about 500 students
that we've had through the program while I've been there.
And in the month of December we caught about 800 fish.
(bright upbeat music begins)
- I actually grew up in that house right there,
the little white one with the wall in front of it,
right on the water with the trees sort of hiding it.
My mom still lives there. [honking noise]
Bermuda's basically made up of limestone, of dead coral.
So lionfish, basically, are out-competing
the native species that are on the reef.
That healthy reef line protects us from storms.
It breaks down some of the wave action and things like that.
So if we lose the grazers,
the coral won't grow, the reef dies.
If we lose the reef system here, yeah,
I mean it's going to be devastating for the island.
So one of the conditions of the lionfish culling license
is that they have to display this flag.
It's basically red with the white line through it,
the classic dive flag, but it's got
the emblem of the lionfish on it as well,
just to show anybody that, hey,
this dive operation is going for lionfish.
So there are divers here with spears, just to beware.
So we'll just display that,
so that everybody can see what we're up to.
(pole settling into place)
Because Bermuda's fisheries laws are quite strict,
we ended up creating a permitting program,
with a special license to be able to deal
with just lionfish with particular gear.
Kwe, he's the main lionfish culler,
and he's actually got the license to be able
to sell lionfish to the restaurants.
- In Bermuda, we have a regulation standard size
spear that we're allowed to use.
It's a five foot maximum,
and that's including the spear tip.
So we also have a regulation spear tip,
which is a three-pronged paralyzer tip.
To use the pole spear, what we do
is, you wrap your thumb in the band
and you just reach down the spear,
three quarters of the way down.
And all you're going to do is let go of that spear
and it will impale the lionfish.
So once it penetrates the fish, what this little device
on the spear tip does is slides down
and creates the spear tips to open up
a little bit more, so that way
the lionfish can't get off the spear.
And also we have barbed tips, which help
a little bit from allowing that fish
to slide up on the spear tip as well.
- You have to be a licensed fisherman
to be able to sell fish.
So there was a caveat made
for the licensed lionfish guys to be able
to sell that lionfish to the restaurant,
and the fact that that's all they're catching.
They're not competing with the fishermen by any other fish.
They're literally only targeting lionfish.
(bright music playing) (water bubbling)
Nice! Good stuff. Put it right on ice.
Growing up in Bermuda, born and raised here
and diving all my life, so I was the collector
of specimens of the aquarium here.
Well the one year I showed up and there was
a lionfish there, and there weren't
as many of the other fish.
A couple of months later I went back,
sure enough there's another lionfish there
and there's even less juvenile fish on this little reef.
So it was pretty obvious to me
the damage they were causing early on.
So then it became an idea of, okay,
let's put this information out to the public.
So we ended up coming up with this culling program
which ended up being the first culling program
anywhere to deal with this invasive lionfish.
They got another one there.
Those guys there and they're super sharp.
Super sharp.
Okay, first to make sure they're dead.
That's the scary part.
He's still a little bit kicking,
so maybe the other guy first.
(ice rattling in cooler)
Yeah, grabbing in the bucket is always the scariest bit.
So, basically what we've got here
is all these spines here carry the venom.
The first one on those two, and then it's
the first three on the angle there.
So all the big spines were gauged.
Every time I've been stung, it's usually by this one,
because the fish has actually got some dexterity with it.
So, he can actually move it around like this.
So on the reef, usually what you'll find
is the lionfish sits there as you come up to it,
he'll lay his spines towards wherever you're going.
So the venom gland goes down the spine
and it ends about right here or so.
The venom is only in the spines.
It's a protein-based venom as well,
and the fact that what you can do
is take the whole fish, with the spines
and everything, and cook it all the way through,
and the venom is denatured, where you can
just consume it, it's no problem.
But we remove the spines,
just so it's easier for the the restaurant,
and the chefs to be able to deal with.
So what we're going to do right now, to make it
safe for everybody, these side ones don't have
any venom in them, there's no spine
that can hurt you on those.
We're going to cut those off to get them out of the way.
(dark dramatic music)
Flip 'em over.
So, we had some of the meat from lionfish
sent away and tested and it ended up
being very high in omega-3 fatty acids
and low in the heavy metals.
It ends up being a very healthy choice as well.
A greener than green choice.
It's the one win-win in the fact that you can
eat as many as you want and feel
absolutely no guilt about eating them.
That's why we came up with the slogan here,
"You eat 'em to beat 'em."
So now, this fish, you can treat it like any other fish.
There's no spines, no venom.
So what we're also going to do is we're going to
cut the belly open, and get the guts
and gills out for those guys.
There's the liver.
And you can see the fat deposits on the liver.
that's a classic overfeeding problem.
That mindset of eating as much as they can,
whenever they can, every single lionfish we've cut open
from the Atlantic has fatty liver disease.
So to see that in wild animals, it shows that
they're actually eating way more than they should be.
(dog barking in distance)
See that? They are a little tricky.
This is usually the time when people
get stuck accidentally, just trying
to clean the fish 'cause they are very spiky.
The first time I got stung was here.
and I was in 80 feet of water, down in the Bahamas.
And I was sort of, you know, checking my pulse.
'Cause you don't know how it's going to affect you.
It was just sore and a lot of swelling.
Two days later I got stung there.
So my hand was like a catcher's mitt for baseball.
But after a couple of days the swelling went down.
It was a bit achy, but nothing to be overly alarmed about.
I've been stung over 11 times now.
And it hurts, it hurts a lot,
and you get swelling and things like that.
Basically you're supposed to take
as hot, warm water as you can,
to denature the venom, so you don't
get a full dose of the venom.
It feels like a bad bee sting.
The biggest fear for lionfish
is literally what they're doing to the reef
and the fact they're consuming all these fish
and causing that damage, that's scarier.
So this is how it we end up
typically presenting them to the restaurant.
So all the spines are off, all the fins are off.
It's been gutted and gilled.
It's just basically the fish and the meat.
These fish are for Alfred at Wahoo's,
so he should be happy with these.
They're a nice-sized fish.
So I'll pack those back on ice, keep them nice.
When we were first getting the lionfish,
a lot of the restaurants saw it
as a green choice, but were still skeptical
because of the venom issue and all that.
But as time's gone on, they've started to realize
that it is a very delightful fish to eat.
It's a good-tasting fish.
So the demand has become higher and higher for lionfish.
They're not scared of it like they used to be.
And people want it. It's a novelty, feel-good fish, ya know?
- What do you got for me?
- We got some lionfish for you.
- Oh great, great. Oh nice size too.
Nice size, yeah. Put 'em on the menu tonight.
(bright upbeat music playing)
So we're going to have some fresh lionfish.
You can see the fin is dark.
This one has more red, like a coral in there.
And you can see how big the mouth is.
So, unfortunately he swallows a lot of small, little fish.
And we going to make four dishes today.
One of them, the first one is a lionfish ceviche.
For a ceviche, we take the skin off.
Well it's a very firm fish, so I mean
it's compared to a red hake, or like a firmer fish.
And since the lionfish only eats live fish,
it has a very nice and clean taste.
So it's not a scavenger, so I love to work with that.
The lime and the salt, that's what's going to cook the fish.
Some sea salt, some nice strawberries from Florida.
Some pink peppercorns. Let me add some of the cilantro.
I think fruit adds a little bit to the flavor of the fish.
It doesn't need much flavor, but it just
makes it a little bit more exciting.
Next we're preparing the lionfish tempura,
which we're using the wings of the fish.
And I leave the skin on the fish.
(bottle spraying) Add some lemon juice,
and a little seasoning salt.
And I give it to my Chef, Gilbert,
and he's going to fry it up.
(bright music resumes)
The next one we do is our jerk lionfish tacos.
I cut the lionfish into pieces,
use some of the jerk seasoning.
Do it like on high heat, so it gives
a little bit of a smoky flavor.
So we use some southwestern coleslaw.
Some coleslaw with some cilantro,
black olives, carrots, red onions.
And we take our fish and we have
some pico de gallo, nice fresh tomatoes.
Some lime sour cream, and a dash of fresh cilantro.
I mean, this is one of our best sellers at Wahoo's.
It's our jerk lionfish taco.
Our next dish, lionfish and coconut,
with lemongrass and garlic.
- The message with lionfish is that,
be aware of your actions, and the fact that
this all came from a couple of fish being released,
just because they didn't want to take it to
another aquarium or dispose of the fish properly.
Being aware of our human actions,
but then also seeing this as an opportunity as well.
We've got this great choice of fish
to now hunt and take as many as we can.
It's the one win-win in the fact that
you can eat as many as you want
and feel absolutely no guilt about eating them.