A freind of mine posted a photo of a Lion Fish on her Facebook site. These fish are very harmful to the Carribean reefs and are not indigenous to the area. They have been introduced by people buying them for their aquariums then releasing them, either in the Gulf of Mexico or the Carribean. Either way, they end up in the warm waters of the Carribean and on the reefs there. They eat the roe and fry of the reef fish and they have no natural preditors on the Carribean reefs. Dive masters in Cozumel have received instructions to capture and kill all that they find. An effort is underway in the US to outlaw the possession and/or sale of these distructive fish. Guess where my friend took her photo. You guessed it, in a local pet shop aquarium!

Here are a couple of photos of Lion Fish I took in Cozumel this summer.

This first one is of a lion fish hiding under a small shelf of coral.

These next two photos are of our dive master, Julio, holding a captured Lion Fish. It has been bagged to be taken to the surface and disposed of .