My husband returns to the same reefs every year in the Bahamas, where he has been teaching a coral reef ecology class for the last 14 years. On his 2008 trip, he noticed that the reef fish were missing. The culprits were quickly identified — and during his 2009 course, he and his students were eating them.

Lionfish.

Lionfish do not belong in the Caribbean. They are native to the South Pacific and Indian Ocean and made their way into the Caribbean through the release (the exact event is unknown) of aquarium fish. Some say they were in a tank that was destroyed in Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Others say it was a release of just 3 or 6 specimens. Whatever the case, lionfish are now spotted as far north as Rhode Island, and are popping up all over the Caribbean, from Colombia to the Virgin Islands to the Bahamas.

The Bahamas‘ marine ecosystem has already been hard hit. The people that know these reefs well are witnessing a rapid decline in reef fish thanks to these voracious predators, which have an appetite for juvenile reef fish. Their method of attack is particularly unique. Instead of an ambush attack or high-speed chase, lionfish make their presence known and confuse their prey by displaying their beautiful fins like a peacock, slowly dancing towards their prey and then rapidly sucking the prey into their mouths like a vacuum. This technique is so effective because no other predator in the Caribbean uses it — so prey are not adapted to avoid it.

Lionfish have no natural predators in Caribbean waters and are thriving on the tasty but already dwindling choice of baby reef fish. Some think that native grouper might have preyed on lionfish — but because grouper are overfished in the Caribbean (and in most parts of the world), the options beyond human predators are few.

As the distribution of lionfish in the Caribbean expands and the severity of this invasion is becoming more apparent, managers are trying to figure out what to do before the adult populations of reef fish are seriously affected. In the Bahamas, they have issued a “kill on sight” directive. The Caribbean Fisheries Management Council has even developed a Most Wanted Poster to encourage removal of these fish.

The best way to get rid of them? Put them on the menu! In Asia, lionfish are a popular menu item. That’s not yet the case in the Caribbean, so folks are working to change the culture of fear that surrounds lionfish (they have toxic spines that really hurt when they touch you) into a culture of desire for a delightful bite of this light and tasty fish. There are even websites that are collecting lionfish recipes — everything from sushi to Bahamian style fritters to smoked lionfish dip (yum!).

The hope is that people will be motivated to hunt and remove these fish, taking advantage of the existing tradition of artisanal fishing in the Caribbean and turning fishers toward this undesirable species and perhaps away from dwindling populations of grouper and snapper.

An additional approach to this problem — and one that would benefit the reef in multiple ways as well — would be to beef up protection of large predators such as grouper and sharks so that they can work to keep this ecosystem in balance and potentially keep the lionfish population in check.

My husband’s students decided to do a small research project to examine the gut contents (i.e., what is in the bellies) of lionfish they found on the Bahamian reefs, and discovered that their bellies were quite full of baby reef fish. The reward for their efforts was a yummy dinner of fried lionfish…and my husband assures me that in terms of flavor and texture, they compete with any flakey white fish you can think of or catch in the Caribbean. So…

This is probably the only time you’ll hear me advocating for people to eat fish. If you want to eat fish, I’d usually refer you to Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch — a guide that helps diners make decisions about the most sustainable and healthy options for seafood. However, when it comes to lionfish in the Caribbean, I say chow down to your heart’s content!

1. Does your iPhone measure the speed of wind? It could with a new application designed to raise consciousness about wind power. The app is more of a marketing tactic than scientific tool, but the makers hope to ultimately develop a database of wind maps.
2. The environmental impacts of eating meat are becoming more and more well known, but a new report says those impacts have actually been underestimated. The analysis from Worldwatch Institute says 51 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from raising livestock and poultry, far more than the 18 percent found by a 2006 FAO report.
3. Cutting down trees to save monarch butterflies? A major bark beetle infestation in Mexico’s fir trees have left officials with two choices — cut the trees down or spray them with insecticides. Since the latter would kill both the beetle and the monarch, officials are racing to fell some 9,000 infected trees before the butterflies arrive in late October.
4. It’s the story of the bat versus the wind turbine… or environmentalist versus environmentalist: a West Virginia spelunker is trying to stop the development of a wind farm because of the possible threat to endangered Indiana bats living in nearby caves.
5. San Francisco already wins the award for the city that recycles the most, but the city just doesn’t want to stop there: a new ordinance mandates that all building owners — commercial and residential — must sign up for recycling and composting services. Officials say the law is already having an impact, even though it just went into effect.

1. Big snakes are becoming a big problem, says the United States Geological Survey.  The group just issued a report concluding that, should the Burmese python and other species of giant constricting snakes continue to make themselves cozy in the U.S., they could completely destabilize ecosystems and wipe out vulnerable native species.  (Hat tip:  dotEarth.)
2. The University of Maryland at College Park and Rio Salado College in Tempe, Arizona will share the title of “America’s Greenest Campus,” reports Green Inc.   In addition to bragging rights, each school gets $5,000 toward new green initiatives.
3. The state of California has legalized “gray water” systems, allowing residents to water their lawns with the runoff from showers, sinks, dishwashers and laundry machines, reports The Vine.  Technically, it’s a huge victory for water conservation, but it turns out a lot of people were already doing it anyway.
4. Does buying green products make you a bad person? According to GreenBiz, a recent report found that people feel better about justifying white lies and other minor infractions after purchasing “green” items– kind of like canceling out a bad behavior with a good one.
5. Keep your chins up, mates!  A new study found that Aussies are losing their enthusiasm for the fight against climate change, and it scarily reflects the current situation in the U.S., says Environmental Capital.

1. What does your beloved pet kitty cat have in common with Florida’s Burmese pythons?  More than you’d think:  The New York Times reports that, according to some wildlife researchers, an urban housecat on the loose could be considered an invasive species.  (Hat tip:  The Vine.)
2. Although it won’t be available for another year, the battle for control over “dot-eco” is heating up, says Green Inc.  Whoever controls the .eco web suffix could make millions in registration fees from groups hoping to do business under the domain.
3. Tailgating:  It’s not just damaging to your liver.  Check out the aftermath of a recent University of Georgia tailgate– bottles, cans…human feces?  C’mon, people!  You’re in COLLEGE!  (Hat tip:  Treehugger.)
4. Grist’s Ask Umbra gives advice to Girl Scouts seeking to kick off an anti-idling campaign at their school.  Did you know that idling is almost always unnecessary, and contrary to popular belief, doesn’t damage your car’s starter?  Now you do…and you’re welcome.
5. Impress your friends with your cutting-edge knowledge of climate change issues!  The Daily Green delivers six new global warming facts.

1. Andy Revkin over at Dot Earth asks if, um, family planning might be the “ultimate green technology.” Researchers at the London School of Economics and  the Optimum Population Trust think so — they’re saying that contraception is the greenest technology out there, and that keeping the global population in check is one of the cheapest ways to combat climate change.
2. The University of Georgia Research Foundation has developed a way to turn dead trees into liquid fuel, reports Atlanta Business Chronicle (via CleanTechnica)– and it could be powering your car as soon as next year.  Hooray!  A biofuel that depends on rising temperatures, droughts and invasive species infestations!
3. The Associated Press reports that Italian authorities are using a robot submarine to explore a shipwreck that may be carrying radioactive waste dumped by the mob. A former mobster claims that millions of dollars were made by illegally dumping toxic waste in Calabrian waters for northern Italian businesses.  Seriously. (Hat tip: Huffington Post.)
4. Grist’s Ask Umbra offers up helpful tips on combating climate change denial. We may have had a cooler-than-usual summer, but there’s a difference between weather and climate, people!
5. While some claim the bubble has burst, GreenBiz says the concept of “going green” is growing — and it’s more important than ever.

The island nation of Australia has a long history of newcomers landing on its shores — beginning with the first indigenous people, who arrived over 40,000 years ago.

With them they bought what was probably the first introduced animal to Australia – the dingo. While it is highly probable this canine had a significant impact on Australia’s unique wildlife, today the dingo is thought to help suppress some of the more damaging new arrivals that are threatening a new wave of mammal extinction in this country.

Australia is a country renowned for its unusual creatures – more than 83 percent of its mammals, nearly 90 percent of its reptiles and about 45 percent of its birds are found nowhere else on earth.

However, in the last 200 years, it is also a country seemingly overwhelmed by introduced species — from cats (such as the one in the image above, photographed by a camera trap) to donkeys, camels, pigs, rabbits, water buffalo and horses and the less obvious bees, ants, mussels and even cockroaches. Each of these species’ populations now numbers in the tens of thousands and often in the millions, including the larger animals such as the camels, pigs and cats.

These larger animals in particular are having a disastrous effect on Australia’s ecological balance. Feral animals are one of the key threats — along with land clearing, over-grazing and altered fire regimes — that are undermining native species survival here. These stresses are partly why Australia lays claim to the unenviable title of having the world’s worst rate of mammal extinction.

Many formerly abundant animals such as the Northern Quoll, Golden Bandicoot (image below) and Black-footed Tree Rat are declining, and doing so very rapidly. The declines are being reported from ranchers, indigenous communities, scientists and national park rangers alike.

The situation is feared to be growing even worse, with northern Australia facing a new and potentially catastrophic wave of mammal extinctions. The Nature Conservancy’s Australia Program has been working to address this issue through a range of mechanisms, including feral animal control on conservation reserves it has established with its partners. It is also working to raise the profile of the issue through public education and by working collaboratively with scientists from partner organizations to identify the fine-scale cause of the decline.

Regardless of the cause, however, what is undeniably needed is a concerted effort to avert an international tragedy. Government, conservation organizations and the science community need to urgently come together and implement a coordinated plan of action that on one level engages the broader community to raise their awareness of the impending extinction crisis yet also addresses key threats on-the-ground (such as cats and cane toads) through effective — and widespread — feral animal control.

(Images: (1) Feral cat photographed by a camera trap, Picca Plains, northern Australia; (2) Golden bandicoot, Northern Territory, Australia. Credit: Alaric Fisher.

When faced with invasive, non-native weeds on the range, the first response for many conservationists is to load up a backpack sprayer full of pesticides.

Spraying chemicals toxic to wildlife and people — under the auspices of protecting wildlife and people — is often portrayed as a necessary evil if we want to stop the spread of invasive species.

But what if such spraying doesn’t actually work?

A 16-year study recently released by the United States Department of Agriculture found that spraying herbicide doesn’t always pay.

The study, on the USDA’s Agricultural Research Station in Miles City, Montana, found that spraying for invasive leafy spurge had quite different results than intended:

“A one-time aerial spraying of herbicide showed that the invasive leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L) may have ultimately increased due to spraying. Conversely, several desirable native forbs were still suffering the effects of spraying 16 years after spraying.”

This is just one study, of course.

But it begs the question: Should the first impulse of conservationists be to spray herbicides and other pesticides to control invasive species? Are such efforts really working?

Spraying pesticides for invasives control has long struck me as one of those cases where “the cure is often worse than the disease.”

Many pesticides have well-documented negative effects on fish and birds and humans. It would seem that we should apply them judiciously and only as a last resort.

Perhaps the real issue here is humanity’s relationship with non-native species. Too often, conservationists appear content to label all non-native species as “bad” and thus seek to eradicate them by any means necessary.

It’s time to face up to the reality of the “invasive species” issue: It’s complicated.

The rapid spread of invasives may be a symptom of deeper ecological problems, not the problem itself. Thus, using chemicals is only treating the symptom, not addressing the real issues. I’ll refrain from making any comparisons to U.S. health care.

In other instances, invasives may be so established on a landscape that we can only hope to manage them, and eradication attempts will be proven folly.

Complex conservation issues deserve complex solutions. Spraying too often feels reactionary rather than well thought.

Spraying does involve action, and action often gives the illusion of accomplishment. Weeds wilt and die. Maybe they even disappear (for a bit).

All this plays well to the battle terminology often employed in invasives control efforts: Dropping toxic chemicals from an airplane makes a certain sense when we’re “winning the war on weeds.”

Certainly, there are incidences where spraying is effective conservation. In the remote canyons of Hells Canyon, for instance, helicopter surveys can reveal small, new weed infestations.

Here, Conservancy crews spray the weeds before they become established. If those weeds  spread, they would damage wildlife habitat and become almost impossible to control. Thus, by spraying now, there likely will be less need for more spraying later.

That’s strategic. Many pesticide applications in invasives control, I am convinced, are not.

Too often, conservationists have been spraying first, asking questions later.

It’s time we take a long, hard look at our use of pesticides, and quit using them when the only measurable outcome is increasing toxic chemicals in our land and water.

(Image credit: Matt Miller/TNC.)

If you garden, you’ve probably been tempted once or twice to plant something beautiful, new, exciting… yes, exotic. But you know you shouldn’t.

Wouldn’t it be easier to resist such temptations if it wasn’t possible to buy invasives at your local nursery or garden store in the first place?

A reader from Michigan saw what appeared to be an invasive plant going in at a new development in his neighborhood and wondered, is there a way to stop nurseries from selling invasive plants?

Good question. And not such an easy one to answer, as it turns out.

From national codes to state-by-state standards (or lack thereof) to working directly with nursery professionals and the market, the situation is diffuse and complex.

Get the inside scoop on efforts to regulate invasive plant sales from Nature Conservancy senior scientist Doug Pearsall in our monthly feature  “Ask the Conservationist.”

And in the meantime, perhaps the best thing gardeners can do is educate ourselves on native plants in our area … and practice strength when browsing the nursery aisles.

(Image: Pampas grass, an invasive in California but not Michigan. Source: Randomtruth via a Creative Commons license.)

Camels and mosquitoes — what do they have in common? They’re invasive species troublemakers, according to today’s Cool Green Morning green gatherings…and they must be dealt with. (Read that last bit in a horror-show-narrator voice. Yeah, like that — that’s spooky…)

1. Camels are in numbers Australia’s largest invasive species (probably in size, too), so the Australian government now plans to shoot 650,000 of the camels to stop their destruction of the environment and water pipes (?!), reports the Associated Press. (Hat tip: 60-Second Science.)
2. More invasives trouble: Planes are carrying mosquitoes to the Galapagos Islands…and those mosquitoes could be a vector for a devastating disease that could wipe out island wildlife, reports Journal Watch Online.
3. One good thing about the recession — it’s reduced CO2 emissions a little bit, reports Dot Earth. (The phenomenon is being called the “CO2 shadow.”)
4. Does New Zealand’s pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10-20 percent by 2020 signal problems for the Copenhagen climate negotiations? The BBC’s Richard Black thinks such “modest” individual-country pledges are supplanting the international negotiating process.
5. Do you bike a lot, and also need yet another way to recharge your smartphone? PedalPower+ now makes a devise that fully recharges your Blackberry or iPod after two hours of riding, says CleanTechnica. (Confession: After two hours of riding, the last thing I can do is talk.)

(Image: Camels in Australia. Credit: Luca Zappa through a Creative Commons license.)

Great — just how I like to start my Monday morning: With a miles-long blob of black goo. See video of this strange phenomenon above, and look below for more info (and some other and decidedly greener links) in this edition of Coolness:

1. A 12-15 mile long mass of heretofore unknown black algae has been spotted off the northern coast of Alaska, reports the Anchorage Daily News. “We have many scientific questions, but very few answers at this point,” one scientist told Bright Green Blog.
2. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tour of a green building in India turned into a heated debate about whether India should be forced to meet greenhouse gas emissions hard targets, reports The New York Times. Environmental Capital rounds up opinions that India’s position doesn’t make a lot of sense.
3. First Wal-Mart is demanding sustainability from its suppliers, now it and other big box retailers like Publix are switching to smart lighting systems and daylight harvesting to cut energy costs in their stores, says Green Inc.
4. Here’s another solution to keep bats from flying into wind turbines — outfit them with radar beams, says a new study reported on in Journal Watch Online. (Don’t ask why bats avoid radar — nobody knows.)
5. Florida has opened its first hunt of Burmese pythons, which are an invasive there, reports the Miami Herald. Count thus far: one python. “If there’s one out there,” says one of the hunters, “it’s too many for the environment.” (Hat tip: The Great Beyond.)