Free Eating Aliens: One Man's Adventures Hunting Invasive Animal Species by Jackson Landers

the dose, and whether or not medical attention comes quickly. Only a very few people succumb.
    In the water, however, the sting of a lionfish could mean death. If the pain and swelling prevent you from swimming back to land, drowning is on the agenda unless you have a very alert dive buddy.
    This was on my mind as I helplessly watched the wounded lionfish decide whether to seek revenge. I was lucky that day. The fish retreated into the underwater cave. I surfaced rapidly, gulping for air.
    Lionfish have shown up in the Caribbean and surrounding waters only recently. It’s widely believed that the lionfish were in an aquarium in a coastal Florida home when 1992’s Hurricane Andrew smashed it into the ocean, and they escaped into the Gulfstream. This doesn’t explain how the lionfish showed up in the waters around Eleuthera some five years ago, but the locals have a theory: They think lionfish eggs were accidentally released to the open water when a high-end resort, boasting what’s billed as the world’s largest tropical marine aquarium (including a population of lionfish), discharged water from its tanks into the ocean. Apparently, it was only after the resort stocked its tanks with lionfish from the Pacific and Indian Oceans that they also began appearing in local reefs.
    The effect of these fish on the reef ecosystem has been rapid and profound. Lionfish will eat just about anything they can fit into their mouth, which isn’t unusual for a fish. The trouble is that there isn’t much in the Atlantic Ocean that finds them worth fighting. Their deadly weaponry discourages most advances. A big, mature grouper will from time to time suck down a whole lionfish, but lionfish seem to eat a lot of immature grouper and are gradually reducing their numbers. Reefs that were once teeming with a broad variety of life only a few years ago are now almost deserted. In some cases, there’s not much left except for lionfish and corals.
    Mojo started a blog and a show on YouTube devoted to teaching people to hunt lionfish. Hunting is definitely the word for it. It isn’t efficient to drop a hook and line and wait for one, as you would with most other kinds of fish. Lionfish hide under rocks, reefs, and other underwater structures, on which a fishing line or a net is apt to snag. They pick a good underwater ledge or alcove and then spend most of their time defending it, and not swimming in open water. You could sit there in a boat all day and not know whether a lionfish was there or if you need go to twenty yards away to the next ledge. The way to really get things done is to get in the water with a mask, fins, a snorkel, and a spear.
    After a long phone conversation with Mojo, it became clear that I had to get myself out to Eleuthera to work with him and learn about how the Bahamians are dealing with the lionfish invasion.
    I figured it would take two or three days to get what I needed, which meant I had to budget at least a week. That’s the funny thing about tropical islands: No one is in a hurry. Ever. Why should he be? The advantage of living on a tropical island in the first place is that things get done when they get done, and maybe they don’t get done at all.
    The day before I left for Eleuthera, I got a phone call from Mojo informing me that he’d be tied up for a few days in Nassau and wasn’t sure when he’d be getting back. This was a bit of a snag in the plan, as I didn’t know a soul in the Bahamas other than Mojo, and with nonrefundable tickets I was going to be on that plane the next morning no matter what.
    I wouldn’t be landing completely cold, however. Mojo arranged for a friend of his, Julian, to rent me a car and to meet me at the airport. The thing is, there are no big rental companies on Eleuthera. If you need a car, it’s a question of who you know. Mojo’s parting tip before hanging up was that Julian was the fixer. If I needed guns for a goat hunt, information on where to find lionfish, a boat,