January 2015

Divers remove invasive surgeonfish
The Miami Herald reports how two divers in Florida spotted a bright yellow fish they had never seen before, and reported it to the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, a Key Largo-based non-profit organization that serves as a regional clearinghouse for control of exotic marine fish species. The fish was a mimic lemon peel surgeonfish, native to the Indo-Pacific and the first of its kind documented in Florida waters. It was caught and a REEF representative said the removal might have averted an ecological disaster similar to the spread of lionfish — another Indo-Pacific invader now well-established in the Western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. [See Miami Herald report] -- Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2015 by chb