100 miles off the coast of Texas, the M/V Fling pulls as much as a decommissioned oil rig. Tying off to its towering construction extending a whole lot of toes underwater, a group of 32 targeted divers descends previous faculties of sharks and jacks, dispersing throughout the sunken steel beams brimming with life.
Amongst these on the road: a pair of ER nurses and a police officer from Dallas, a Florida lawyer, an IT specialist from Colorado – and the Florida Keys’ personal “lionfish queen,” Rachel Bowman.
The journey is the primary of the season for the Lionfish Invitational, a trailblazing partnership meshing investigators from aquariums, universities, Texas Parks and Wildlife and NOAA with “civilian scientists.” (Learn: Skilled divers who actually, actually love the ocean, wish to make a distinction and have first rate intention with a pole spear.)
For 3 days, the group navigates their means by way of the reefs and rigs of the Flower Backyard Banks Nationwide Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS). Becoming in a laundry listing of fish surveys and initiatives for scientists on board, the remainder of the group has one purpose: discover as many invasive venomous lionfish as doable, and shoot them. (Don’t fear – they’ve a particular allow.)
First detected greater than 40 years in the past as their invasion started in Florida, the visually beautiful fish are native to the Indo-Pacific area. Their venomous spines pack a imply punch, and so they’re a demise sentence for thousands and thousands of juvenile fish as they hoover up their meals on reef techniques.
“When lionfish first invaded the sanctuary in 2011, we had been actually frightened, as a result of we thought they had been going to take over the reef,” stated FGBNMS superintendent Michelle Johnston. “We knew that we couldn’t host conventional removing efforts like derbies that had been being performed in Florida – we will’t simply let untrained folks go 100 miles offshore and deal with venomous fish and suppose that individuals are going to be secure and likewise comply with the principles.
“We thought, ‘What if we convey expert divers who’re good at this, who’re good hunters, and make it inexpensive, and do surveys and see if we’re having an influence?’ It began like that, as a check. We had an amazing response, it took off, and it grew to become like a full-time job.”
Enter Bowman, broadly thought to be a pioneer and main professional in industrial lionfish assortment from her residence base in Marathon.
“Rachel actually harassed me and stated ‘I’ve received to be on that boat,’” stated Johnston. “She got here the second yr we began doing these (journeys), and he or she simply ran with it.”
Quick-forward a decade, and Bowman is president of the Lionfish Invitational, now its personal nonprofit fielding greater than 300 functions a summer season simply to seize a seat on one among 4 journeys on the Fling.
For divers coming from nearly anyplace else within the U.S., the expertise is, in a single participant’s phrases, like “diving on the moon.”
Within the Keys, the place a wholesome reef may traditionally see 30 % to 40 % residing coral cowl, ranges have dropped down to simply 2%. Rope, deserted “ghost traps” and severed anchors litter the underside, exceedingly accessible at simply three miles offshore.
At some dive websites throughout the Flower Backyard Banks, take a look at the ocean ground, and residing coral is all you’ll see.
“In case you’re a coral particular person, the Flower Gardens are 100% in your bucket listing,” stated Bowman. “It’s one of many healthiest residing coral reefs in America, and that’s their Everest.”
“What makes me so glad is individuals who’ve by no means seen it,” stated Johnston. “While you see out right here what a wholesome reef system appears like, it adjustments you. It adjustments your understanding of the ocean.
“That is really what a nationwide marine sanctuary must be. It’s particular. It’s worthy of safety. It’s worthy of your time and it’s price you going residence and being excited, speaking about it and sharing.”
The expertise on the 100-foot Fling, operated by Texas Caribbean Charters as one of many solely industrial alternatives to dive the Flower Gardens, is “lionfish summer season camp on the water,” in each ladies’s phrases. As much as 4 dives per day are separated by wholesome two-hour floor intervals, throughout which the crew of the vessel – most of whom volunteer their time – hold bellies full and minds clear in preparation for the following sub-sea enterprise.
“The care and repair you get from each worker – they make you’re feeling such as you’re the one particular person on the boat,” stated Bowman. “You need for nothing, and they’re so insanely useful and so they’re so glad we’re on the market doing what we’re doing.”
However the journey is, at its core, a analysis expedition for the great of the reef, an element by no means misplaced beneath the camaraderie of these on board.
After every dive, harvested fish are individually measured, with fins clipped for genetic and toxin evaluation. Science groups on board coordinate their particular person wants and aims for ongoing research at every dive web site, from collections of different invasive fish to water sampling, monitoring of buoy traces and replacements of acoustic tag receivers on the reefs.
“I believe it’s one of the crucial impactful issues we do, each research-wise and education-wise,” stated Johnston. “To get folks to care about a spot that’s 100 miles offshore that they most certainly won’t ever see is a problem for us. It’s a broad vary of people that get uncovered to this, take it again to the place they’re from, after which it’s like a ripple impact.”
And whereas way more thorough research are wanted, the attention check says the group’s efforts are making a dent.
Within the early years focusing on the species, removing efforts, together with Lionfish Invitational cruises, may remove 300 to 400 fish at a time. In August 2018, that quantity soared to close 800 on an all-rigs expedition.
However on the primary journey of 2025, divers discovered and eliminated simply 99 fish. That may very well be a superb factor, but it surely’s too early to make the ultimate name.
“It’s the standard increase and bust of invasive species,” stated Johnston. “You’ll have your preliminary increase, after which it drops off. And so a key query for me is, are we going to have a increase once more?”
“It just about goes with the remainder of the numbers in the remainder of the Gulf and Florida,” Bowman added, evaluating journeys within the Flower Gardens to her industrial harvests from 2016 to 2019.
An absence of pure predators has aided the unfold of the spiny fish throughout the Caribbean and into the Gulf. However now, there are even indicators that human hunters could also be getting help from their pure counterparts.
Not too long ago, a lionfish marked at a Flower Backyard Banks reef with an acoustic tag by Texas A&M College investigator Marissa Nuttall pinged at a close-by oil rig – and a particular system designed to work together with the abdomen acid of a predator if the fish was consumed was triggered.
“My hope is that, with us going out and doing our job, we’d not ever have an uptick like this once more, which is one much less factor the reef system has to fret about,” stated Johnston.
“As you lower the workers of the businesses that conduct this analysis, folks reminiscent of myself are obligated to step up and fill that void,” stated Bowman. “There may be nonetheless analysis to be performed. We’re simply not going to receives a commission to do it, but it surely’s going to nonetheless occur.”
Extra info, together with functions for divers who’ve their Superior Open Water and Enriched Air certifications, is at lionfishinvitational.com. The nonprofit is at all times accepting donations, and as Bowman stated with amusing, “You’ll be able to 100% purchase your means onto this boat.” To help analysis and operations throughout the FGBNMS, go to marinesanctuary.donorsupport.co/web page/FGBNMS.
