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.