Lionfish

Last year I spent some time hunting lionfish in the Cayman Islands with Nat Robb and Artemis "Art" Hintze of Indepth Water Sports. Like a lot of the dive industry people there, Robb and Hintze were fed up with the way that lionfish, a voracious invasive species from the Indian Ocean, were taking over dive sites. So they started spearing them.And then the fun started, because people discovered that lionfish aren't just voracious, but also delicious. Lionfish tastes like a combination of lobster and Chilean sea bass—and since lionfish have scales, they're kosher, unlike lobster.This month, I went back and revisited a number of the dive sites I'd seen last year. Lionfish were much scarcer, and for a reason: Restaurants on Cayman have started to serve them to eager diners. I had a plate of delicious pan-seared lionfish over pickled vegetables at Michael's Genuine in Camana Bay. Restaurants on Cayman are struggling to meet the demand. The lionfish aren't gone; when I went with Robb and Hintze to a less-visited site, I harvested 15-plus pounds in about half an hour. But the approach is clearly helping., and it got me thinking that this solution might be profitably applied to many other annoying invaders.Click through to see some other places where people are trying to eat invasive species—and for a delectable way to prepare lionfish, courtesy of Art Hintze.