Lionfish may have a bounty placed on their head as members of the Legislative Assembly (LA) voted to accept a private members motion on exploring this possibility.

North Side MLA, Ezzard Miller, put forward a private member’s motion last week to pay a bounty of $5 per fish in an effort to get rid of the invasive nuisance in the Cayman Islands waters.

Miller proposed using some of the $43M from the Environmental Protection Fund to pay for the bounty and said even this cost could be recouped by the sale of the fish to restaurants.

Miller said, “Government needs to encourage the elimination of this dangerous threat. We know some people are forced to supplement their income by poaching and I believe if we offered $5 per lionfish and did the appropriate training, they could assist in the fight and stop poaching.

Although agreeing with the proposal, Hon. Mark Scotland, the Minister for the Environment, said permission might have to be sought from the UK because of the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility that has recently been signed into law.

“It’s a tremendous problem and government agrees we need a solution,” Mark Scotland said, “But what we want to see in any exercise is a structured programme that is monitored. When there has been sustained efforts, we can see it works, so we need to see where and how long takes.”

– In the Caribbean, a single female lionfish can spawn over 2 million eggs per year

-Lionfish have the potential to reproduce every 4 days, throughout the year

– Lionfish eggs are held together in a gelatinous mass and are dispersed at the ocean’s surface by currents, where their larval duration is about 26 days

– Lionfish become sexually mature in less than 1-year

– Lionfish may live longer than 15 years, reaching sizes exceeding 47cm (~20 in.)

– Lionfish inhabit all marine habitat types and depths (shoreline to over 600’)

– Lionfish possess venomous spines capable of deterring predators and inflicting serious stings and reactions in humans

-Lionfish are indiscriminate predators with voracious appetites