The Lion King

Let's be honest. We can often paint people, places, or things as enemies. Sometimes it's valid, sometimes the threat is real because it's purposeful. However, a recent re-introduction of the Lion Fish in certain coastal areas has sent the evil PR machine into overdrive.

This particular family of fish is unique. It is easily recognized for its beautiful appearance. The lion fish is usually wildly striped in hues of red, brown, and orange. It captures the imagination for its long separated spines which are actually poisonous. However these are defense mechanisms. The lion fish doesn't generally troll the seas looking to see who it can hurt.

For its beauty and splendor, the lion fish does have one thing working against it: its appetite. It is a voracious hunter, and depending on size, can easily eat many times its weight in one sitting. A fascinating aspect of this fish's eating habit is that it generally swallows its prey whole, using a powerful vacuum-like suction to gobble up its meal. Its appetite usually means wherever it goes populations of other smaller fish are almost always devastated. Not only this, but if found and bred in certain tourist friendly areas, these fish are bound to injure a few visitors. As a tourist one should be inclined to watch where one goes, and to not try to touch anything that looks like it could possibly give you more than a headache later.

Lion fish do not breed well in captivity. Who would really want to get it on in a big rectangle with people watching? However in its native or adopted environment, the lion fish can reproduce rapidly. This is causing problems for many Caribbean areas. The big uproar in the news is about how they are aggressively destroying fragile coastal systems. While it's true that the lion fish is all about itself, it doesn't possess the higher order thinking to say "what's on the ol' to-do list? let's see...destroy ecosystem..." The lion fish acts intuitively to its nature, just as everything else in the ocean does. However its line of thinking collides directly with ours. It should be our responsibility to maintain a healthy balance in the world's oceans.

But this doesn't mean we need to exterminate the little buggers. The fish can be safely captured and relocated into aquariums or private tanks. You won't see fishermen off the coasts of Spain spearing the numerous jellyfish that have suddenly exploded in number. Let's be sensible and decent about how we treat population spikes in the sea. When things like this happen, it's a sign. It means the Earth is pissed.

It Takes a Real Roughy to be a Slimehead

The orange roughy is a long-lived, deep sea fish that has quite a unique set of characteristics.  Despite its name, the roughy is actually a dark red in real life, only when it dies does its pigment fade to its widely given name.  

The orange roughy lives its life in cold waters taking its time maturing and mating.  While the average and oldest age can be disputed, there is no arguing this particular fish's staying power.  On average they can age to up...well...pretty damn old.  And that's as scientific as one can get.  But an old fishing tale has it the oldest roughy caught was 149.  He probably only looked 100.  Because they live in colder waters they tend to be on the sluggish side, which also complicates its mating ritual.  It takes a considerable amount of time before a roughy is ready to mate.   To put in perspective, the roughy is almost like a human.  It takes at least 20-30 for this animal to be reproductively mature.  So he's the post-college grad who just moved into his first apartment in the upper, upper east side looking for that wife to start passing on his genes.  

So how can an endearing fish such as the roughy carry a name like slimehead?  Simple, they were lovingly named after a physical trait which is common in their family, the muciferous (read: mucus) canals that run down their large heads.  Awwww...

To see a roughy one would probably recoil in horror.  Afterall, this is no Koi.  Rather the roughy takes pleasure in the fact that he is a bit of an anomaly.  Still ugly but still prized.  The roughy has found itself, unfortunately, in a position like that of his distant cousins.  He and his family are being hunted down to the point of collapse.  What makes this extra hard to take is that fishing has become so sophisticated that deep sea trawling can reach depths like never before.  This means relatively safe groups of roughy are now forced to either migrate or get caught.  That's like asking the handicapped to pick up their wheelchairs and run down the fire escape.  The roughy can't handle such brutal treatment.  

But this species is another fine example of the exotic life we are fortunate to have on our earth, and how we are squandering opportunities to preserve it.  Fish aren't masochists.  They don't like being hunted down.  They probably aren't great cuddlers (especially with mucus-y bodies and all) but they still deserve hugs.  Even the roughys.  But chances are you won't be able to dive that deep.  So just blow him a kiss.  He likes kisses.