Exotic Marine Fish Species Released In Florida -News Article

[John_Brandt]

most, if not all, of the press stories about piranha found in u.s. lakes/ponds have been shown to have been Pacu, or metynnis (silver dollar) species, and not piranha, iirc :wink:

That may be an exaggeration. There certainly have been misidentifications, but there are a large number of thoroughly documented occurances of true pirahnas in US waters.

Red-belly pirahna (Pygocentrus <Serrasalmus> nattererei): http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpFactSheet.asp?speciesID=429

White pirahna (Serrasalmus rhombeus): http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpFactSheet.asp?speciesID=431

Unidentified pirahna (Pygocentrus or Serrasalmus sp.): http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpFactSheet.asp?speciesID=430

 

[Anonymous]

those aren't a comparative listing of actual findings vs. initial reports/claims, are they?

 

[dizzy]

:!: I think Marc Weiss lives somewhere down in that area. Let's blame him. :wink:

 

[PRC]

Originally posted by dizzy
Must of been a hurricane release.

Hurricane release, what the heck is a hurricane release? It's even funnier since it's mentioned so casually, like it's a common occurence, "Oh, just another hurricane release".
First thing is there hasn't been a hurricane down here that could have done this (if it could be done at all) since Andrew back in the early 90's. Contrary to popular belief, south Florida is not pummeled by devastating hurricanes every year. And then, what are the chances of one of these fish surviving the destruction of the house and it's tank and then making it's way to the open ocean? Almost infinitesimal, I'd imagine.
On the other hand I don't have a very hard time believing that someone released these fish for some reason or other. There's someone on this very forum asking about the viability of releasing Tridacna clams in the gulf.
I'm all for blaming Marc Weiss, though :wink:
:idea: Maybe it was a tornado release. Ya, that's it. We've had a few of those down here recently and, heck, if it worked for Dorothy and Toto then why not a few angelfish, right?

Originally posted by Rover
I've never understood the problem with introduced species. How do you tell if it is "unnaturally" introduced?

What!!! Well, um hows this:

Originally posted by John Brandt
The largest set of intentionally released marine fish was carried out in temperate coastal and inland seas of Russia in the 20th century. Sixteen species became established, with ecologically and economically devastating results, including harm to valuable fisheries, parasite introductions and the endangerment and extinction of native species.

I guess if "ecologically and economically devastating results" are not a "problem" then I can't help you understand this anymore.
Seriously, If you are familiar with the catastrophic results of many past exotic species introductions, I'm not sure how you can't see this as being a potentially huge problem?

 

[Anonymous]

Interestingly, in my ichthyology lecture on Monday the professor was presenting the diversity of Scorpaeniformes, and spent the last 20 minutes of class discussing the lionfish introductions on the east coast. He's done quite a bit of research on the application of GARP, which is Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Predictions. Basically, researchers use navy buoys and satellite analysis to take physical measurements of the waters where certain species have been recorded, in this case Pterois volitans, then use a "thinking" algorithm to combine the measured variables and determine how much of the relationship between the variables is non-random and predictive. The variables can then be used to predict the species' distribution.

There is more to it than that, but the conclusion he shared from a powerpoint he will be presenting is that the breeding populations of lionfish off the Carolinas/Georgia and Florida are likely to expand to most all shelf waters in the Gulf and Carribbean. The only area where the species is not projected to become well established is in the dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi. Kinda depressing.