The Department of Environment is pushing for local anglers to help their efforts.
At last week’s Family Ties fishing tournament, the government body had a significant presence. Senior research officer Mark Bothwell and conservation officer Carl Edwards manned a booth where they handed out information on marine parks.
Bothwell also made a point of encouraging participants to attend future lion fish tournaments.
“Our lion fish tournament is coming up and I’m inviting all of the junior and senior anglers to take part,” Bothwell said. “We at the DOE want input from the fishermen in Cayman on issues like the marine parks. Like the Cayman Islands Angling Club we want fishing to last in Cayman.”
Edwards was focused on educating the public about the dangers of lion fish and an ongoing project focused on identifying the different varieties of sharks, whales and dolphins in Cayman. Edwards stated in passing that lion fish are a huge problem for Cayman.
“Lion fish are alien fish because they have no natural predators,” Edwards said. “All they do is feed and damage the reefs. In a few months they can go from a few dozen in number to hundreds if not thousands. The big issue we have now is limiting their numbers and many of them are in the marine parks. Ideally we would like to get the anglers interested in hunting them.”
For the record the next lion fish tournament in Cayman is scheduled for 17-18 September. Labelled a lion fish culling competition, prizes are on offer for teams capturing the smallest, largest, most number of and greatest overall weight of fish. Comfort Suites and Ambassador Divers are the major sponsors with fish weigh-in taking place at the Seven Mile Public Beach each afternoon at 4pm.
A sampling of lion fish will be grilled by Michael’s Genuine Food and Drink and offered free of charge to the public on the afternoon of Sunday, 18 September.
The Family Ties tournament was put on by the angling club and took place around the waters of Grand Cayman. Fish weigh-in occurred at the Barcadere Marina in George Town. Some 33 junior anglers and 13 registered boats took part. Among the stars were Charles ‘CJ’ Ebanks-Evans who had four of the tournament’s heaviest fish and Dylan Merren who had the second heaviest barracuda.
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