In the initial meeting of ENVS 385 – Lionfish in the Caribbean, the students were introduced to each other, the nature of the study we will participate in, core concepts surrounding the issue, and our main question, which is how to make harvesting Lionfish a profitable endeavor. We had a visit from a representative of Emory’s IRB office, who described the process for certifying a study to confirm that it is ethical in application and discussed our first reading, the first chapter of Sustainable Fishery Systems by Anthony T. Charles and an AJC article about Lionfish.
The Charles reading provided a framework to describe how to think about the categories and various inputs and outputs from and to a fishery.
Further Questions
Our final activity for the day was to address what questions we would need answers to, to better understand how to achieve profitable Lionfish harvest. They are were as follows:
* How many boats/fisherman?
* Inshore or offshore [This ties in with spacial scale]
* Species fished
->Price sold
* Fishing methods
* Current Management (This can be broken down into a larger list)
* How are the fishermen organized?
->Individual groups
->Institutions?
->Dependence on fishing?
* Who are consumers
->Local vs. export
* State of natural system
* View of species
* Spatial scale [This ties in with inshore/offshore]
* Historical context
* Infrastructure
* Perception of fish market
->internal vs. external
* Supply chain?
* Social/economic environment
* Ecosystems/Stressors
* Bathyometry
* Consumers
->How much eaten?
->Willingness to pay (WTP)?
->Proportions of fish consumed? (types of fish)
* Difference between tourist consumption and locals?
* Effort to prepare fish?
* Lionfish
Reproduction -> population dynamics
Danger -> actual & perceived
Diet?
Yield rate?
* Food safety
Ciguatera/fish poisoning
Also, Dr. Yandle suggested we prepare questions for Scott who will have a teleconference with us via Skype on Friday.
Working Waterfronts 