Volume 66
Lionfish Control in U.S. National Parks
Authors
Mcdonough, V., C. Vilmar, T.A. Ziegler, C. McCreedy, and C.A. Toline Download PDF Open PDF in BrowserOther Information
Date: November, 2013
Pages: 175 177
Event: Proceedings of the Sixty six Annual Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute
City: Corpus Christy
Country: USA
Abstract
Strategies adopted by U.S. National Park Service to monitor and control lionfish and mitigate impacts on protected resources are reviewed. This paper reviews and compares approaches taken in two parks located in South Florida: Biscayne National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park. In 2012, NPS adopted a Lionfish Response Plan with input from park managers and biologists, NOAA, REEF and university scientists (Mcreedy et al. 2012). First documented in Biscayne National Park in 2009, lionfish have since been detected in six other National Parks in Florida, Mississippi and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The affected parks are responding and removing lionfish according to local resource conditions and available funding.