Colombia eats its way out of a lionfish crisis

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Red lionfish
Red lionfish

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a scourge decimating coral reefs throughout the Caribbean Sea. A venomous fish with quills that is not native to the waters has arrived, and it is eating and breeding at such a voracious rate that it is pushing out other species.

Nobody knows exactly how this lionfish got from its endemic home in the Indian Ocean to this hemisphere — the leading theory says people in Florida released aquarium pets into the wild — but the problem is only getting worse. It has become a full-blown crisis for the Caribbean.

Now, chefs and government officials in Colombia are promoting a common-sense solution: eat the lionfish. They have no predators underwater, so humans are the only thing that can halt their runaway population growth. “It’s an ecological problem that has a gastronomical solution,” said Jorge Rausch.

Rausch is widely recognized as Colombia’s best chef and owns nine high-end restaurants throughout the country along with his brothers Mark and Ilan. He has taken the lead role in advocating for Colombians to eat lionfish. The good news is that they are delicious. Once people try this flaky whitefish, they want more. So Rausch’s campaign focuses on awareness.

The Rausch brothers’ currently sell a lionfish ceviche in their flagship Bogotá restaurant Criterion, but they have so far not had a large enough supply to add dishes to the menu in either of their two Bistronomy locations in the capital.

It is easier to come by on the water than in the Andes, however, so diners can always find lionfish available at their three eateries in Cartagena and Barranquilla on the Caribbean coast.

“I try to sell as much as I can,” said Rausch. “I try to have it everyday. Some days I cannot — but almost everyday — and everybody wants to eat it.”

With more customers seeking it out, the lionfish supply scarcity is now the larger issue. Because lionfish live in the reefs, you can’t catch them in nets. You have to go diving or snorkeling with a spear to catch them one at a time. This means the supply is still low, and it will stay that way until more people on the coast realize there is good money to be made spear-hunting.

“We have a lot of restaurants that want to serve it more, but we almost have a shortage of the fish because they’re kind of difficult to get in quantity,” said Andy Lowe, president of Lionfish Hunting. “Keeping the restaurants supplied is becoming a problem now.”

Lowe, who lives in Florida, is trying to teach people how to hunt. He developed a folding spear that is easier to manage underwater and sells all-you-need hunting kits that include a plastic “containment units” to put fish in after you spear them. Because of their venomous spines, it pays to have a container that will prevent accidental stings.

For Lowe, who was a U.S. Navy diver and has worked as a dive instructor for nearly two decades, his advocacy for hunting and eating lionfish was a natural extension of something he already loved doing. “Increasing awareness has been one of our biggest goals for the past few years, and I think we’re starting to turn that corner,” said Lowe.

Rausch believes Colombia is on a similar path. He says that the video campaign he has created in partnership with the government and non-profits like the Clinton Foundation has been a sweeping success. He wants it to become a model for other affected nations to follow.

He also wrote a cookbook called “Pez Leon,” and the campaign’s new videos teach people how to create cheaper containment vessels out of recycled bottles rather than paying $100 or more for the top-caliber ones sold in Florida.

Though the inherent challenge of catching them one at a time won’t go away, he is hoping that increased awareness and more equipment will help supply catch up to the demand. Large Colombian supermarket Olimpica is now selling lionfish in its stores and sees this as a large opportunity going forward.

“Olimpica, they sell lionfish now in their stores,” said Rausch. “That is something that makes them a pioneer in the world … We can sell as many as we can get. Olimpica is prepared to buy millions and millions of pesos of lionfish.”

It is hard to say how much of a dent humans are making. There are so many lionfish out there and they breed so quickly that even maintaining current population levels is an accomplishment. So it’s up to our appetites to make any progress in the battle. In order to defeat the lionfish, people will need to start acting more like them.

“They’re voracious eaters,” said Lowe. “Years ago I had one in my aquarium. It was great because you can drop a dozen goldfish in there and one lionfish is going to eat them all in about 30 seconds to a minute and stuff himself.”

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