Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Crisis in our Ocean


A cold front came in last night so we are doing a lot of school work today. We are going to visit a local school here also so we can see what a regular day is like. I hope I don't have to wear the uniform.
My dad is meeting with people today about the lion fish problem here. Lion Fish. Some people think of the lion fish as very beautiful fish. That may be but they are one of the most dangerous creatures I've ever seen. Here's how it started. Some people that work for aquariums and people who had aquariums, didn't want the lion fish anymore in their aquariums so they put the lion fish on a boat and dumped them in our water! They are native to the South Pacific, not our waters. Also, the hurricanes pushed them in our water. But that's not even the bad part. These fish don't have any predators. The fish have some very poisonous spines on their dorsal fins so that if they hurt you with it you will either get really sick or possibly die. The lion fish are eating all the eggs of all our good fish that the fishermen are relying on. The Bahamian government is working with reef relief organizations and my dad is meeting with them to try to come up with solutions quickly, but its going to get worse before its going to get better. The are multiplying rapidly. The reef relief organizations say that "The lionfish provide a classic example of the risks of introducing a non-native aquarium fish into the wild environment." It is just so hard to believe that one species of fish can just come in our water and kill all of our fish. Lets just hope it will get better soon.

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