Pretty Poisons

Diving off the coast of North Carolina you see a showy fish you've never seen before. You think, 'Great, that means all that conservation stuff we're doing is working, right'. WRONG! Not every newly seen animal or plant is a good thing. Some of these are introduced, meaning they came from somewhere else and were put in a new place, usually by accident.

At first glance this may not seem like a bad thing, but drop a pride of hungry lions in the center of town and see what damage they could do to your habitat. Introduced species often have no predators, so their growth goes nearly unchecked. They eat the food that normally would have gone to other animals (and possibly to us eventually). Introduced species can decimate animals that eat similar things or live in similar areas. A small group of introduced species can take over the ecosystem and drastically change how things work in that location. Zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, Kudzu in the south US, and rabbit in Australia, are but a few examples of species that were introduced and changed the ecosystem forever. And now it seems, it may be happening again.

Recently NOAA research divers off the coast of North Carolina did see a new fish., a lionfish, usually occurring in much more tropical regions than north Carolina such as the Indo-Pacific. The sighting of this fish have aroused concern in both the local and scientific communities. The species of lionfish, Pterois volitans, is popular in large saltwater aquariums due to its showy fin structure and coloring, is not only drop dead pretty, but its drop dead dangerous as well. The lionfish has venomous spines on its back. They use these weapons for defense.

Due to the warm winter, these fish survived and may be able to breed in these waters. Scientists want to keep a careful lookout for any introduced lionfish activity in North Carolina. These lionfish are the same species as a popular salt water aquarium specimen. A well meaning animal lover may have decided to let the fish go than have to kill it when a move, an aquarium accident or other mishap occurred.

Lionfish this far north off the coast of the US is still new so there are many ways you can help. The first way is to know what a lionfish looks like. Go to this link for a picture and factsheet.

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