If You Can’t Beat Them, Eat Them
April 28, 2019

Can appealing to our stomachs–and our sense of fun–help preserve an ecosystem? Off the Florida coast, the lionfish, an aquarium pet gone destructive, is promoted as food and in spearfishing contests.
Check out the story in The Christian Science Monitor here.
“What is being lost? The answer is easy. A precious and irreplaceable part of Florida’s, and the nation’s, heritage is disappearing. Plants, animals, and entire ecosystems that took tens of thousands to millions of years to evolve are at risk. What is being gained in their place? A hodgepodge of species found in other parts of the world. . . . Florida is being homogenized, and everyone, for all time to come, will be the poorer for it.”
—E. O. Wilson, in his foreword to Strangers in Paradise: Impact and Management of Nonindigenous Species in Florida