There may finally be a natural predator in Cayman waters to combat the growing invasion of lionfish – humans.

Divers who catch lionfish can now keep and eat the fish, according to an amendment in rules governing the capture of the invasive species.

Up until recently, all lionfish caught had to be handed over to the Department of Environment, where the DNA of the fish was taken to determine the breeding patterns and origins of the fish.

But so many of the striped, venomous but beautiful creatures have been caught, it has become too time-consuming for the department to continue taking DNA samples or to store the dead fish, according to Bradley Johnson of the DoE.

“As long as the fish are killed and as long as people give us the information on the length of the fish and where it was caught, then people can keep the fish, but it must be killed,” he said.

He added that some divers and snorkelers who captured the fish had kept and eaten them, despite the regulations that stipulated that all captured lionfish had to be surrendered.

“We were not getting the information we needed,” Mr. Johnson said, because people know if they captured the fish and notified the DoE, they would have to hand it over.

Licensed lionfish cullers must send to the department, the date and location of the catch, the culler’s name and dive company, if applicable, and the length in millimetres of the fish.

An advisory from the DoE to cullers states: “All lionfish captured under this license must be killed - there shall be no keeping, trade, or disposal of any live specimens unless specifically permitted by the [Marine Conservation] Board.”  

The department has notified via email the hundreds of divers who are certified to cull the fish of the changes to the regulations, and has set up a Facebook page, called the DoE Lionfish Culling Group, that enables people to post where and when they have seen lionfish, and even recipes on how to cook them.

Mr. Bradley said that, not including the lionfish people had failed to hand in to the department, some 1,000 lionfish had been captured in the three Islands since the first lionfish was caught in Little Cayman in February 2008.

All lionfish captured must still be killed and cannot be kept be in fish tanks as pets, under the regulations. Those who do not want to eat the fish can still hand them over to the Department of Environment.

Later this year, Dr. Mark Hixon of Oregon State University, who has run a lab documenting sightings of lionfish in the Bahamas for several years, and two of his students, will spend three months at the Little Cayman Research Centre to study the influx of lionfish in the Cayman Islands.

The lionfish is considered one of the most potentially disastrous invasions in marine history because of the explosion of its population and its aggressive behaviour. Lionfish can drastically reduce the number of coral reef fish in a short period of time.

They are the only marine creatures that can be taken during a dive in Cayman, due to a special exemption in the Marine Conservation Law introduced to help slow down the invasion.

Lionfish are not native to Caribbean waters, but are believed to have been introduced as a result of aquaria smashed in hurricanes in Florida and tank releases. They originate in the Indo-Pacific oceanic region and have no local natural predators.

The Department of Environment has been running courses to train divers and snorkelers how to capture the lionfish, after which the participants are given lionfish culling certification cards.

Anthony Pizzarello, head chef at the Little Cayman Beach Resort, said there were still not enough lionfish being caught to enable him to put the fish on the resort’s menu, but he has cooked them in the past when he worked in the Pacific.

“We’d need to catch a lot of them to feed the guests here,” he said.

The chef advised people who want to cook the spiny fish to be careful of the spines and fins while they’re cutting them off because they may still contain some venom.

“Cut off the spines and scale the fish if you don’t want to eat the skin, although the skin tastes pretty good. They’re very delicate and can be overcooked easily. You can pan fry them with a little butter and almonds.

“They’re low in fat and cook very quickly,” he said, adding that the lionfish meat was similar to flounder or sole.

Meanwhile, Little Cayman Beach Resort has appreciative recipients for the captured lionfish in the tame groupers that hang around on dive sites there.