Second Annual Nevis Lion Fish Hunt Fete Planned for Sunday

(ZIZ News) – The Nevis Historical and Conservation Society [NHCS], the Nevis Yacht Club and the Nevis Air and Sea Ports Authority are collaborating to host the second annual Lion Fish Hunt Fete.

Planned for Sunday March 29th at Oualie Beach, the event is designed to capture the interest of both locals and visitors.

ZIZ News spoke with Executive Director of the NHCS, Evelyn Henville about the plans.

She said, “The preparations are going fine. We are looking at getting all of our local fishermen involved. We’re asking persons with boats to come along and participate with us because we need persons with boats who can take people out to find these lion fish in the various places that they’re hiding…and we’re planning with our hotels, hoping our hotels will advertise this to their guests and so, here is something for our visitors in our hotels to come out and do.”

Henville described the lion fish as destructive to marine life as it is a major predator.

“The lion fish…is destroying our ocean by eating all of our baby fish and the reef is not being cleaned with the loss of our crustaceans and all of the baby fishes then we will not have any proper livelihood for our fishermen, and the ocean produces fish for our fishermen and it also produces activities for our tourism product, our tourism industry. Our divers, our tour operators use the ocean so it is livelihood and therefore, the lion fish is decreasing our livelihood by how they’re patrolling the ocean,” she explained.

According to Henville, St. Kitts-Nevis needs to get on board with other countries’ efforts of eradicating the lion fish from nearby waters. She believes that eating the lion fish is the only way to get rid of it and save the ocean.