[Coral-List] Lionfish after the hurricanes?

Hudson Pinheiro htpinheiro at gmail.com
Tue Oct 17 22:08:19 UTC 2017


Hi Vanessa,

This is very interesting. Last year we visited the Bahamas just after the
hurricane Matthew (Sep 2016). We explored many sites and assessed the fish
community up to 450 ft and we barely spotted lionfish specimens there. They
might be removed by the currents...

Cheers

Hudson T. Pinheiro
California Academy of Sciences

On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 12:36 PM, McDonough, Vanessa <
vanessa_mcdonough at nps.gov> wrote:

> Hi all,
> At Biscayne National Park, we have noticed that after Hurricane Irma
> passed, our lionfish are far fewer and much smaller than we were previously
> observing.  The reef sites where we consistently observed high numbers of
> lionfish now have very few (if any) lionfish.  Where we used to find fish
> that averaged 35-40cm long, we are lucky to find fish that are 25cm in
> length.  We have observed this across all depths and habitats in the park,
> from about 20ft to 70ft depth.
> I was just wondering if: a) anyone else has observed a similar trend and b)
> if anyone has any insight as to where the lionfish may have gone.  Has
> anyone had any deepwater observations to confirm if they retreated to
> deeper waters?
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Vanessa McDonough, Ph.D.
> Fishery and Wildlife Biologist
> Biscayne National Park
> 9700 SW 328th St
> Homestead, FL 33033
> ph: 305-230-1144 ext 027
> fax: 305-230-1190
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>



More information about the Coral-List mailing list