Divers hunt invasive lionfish

The lionfish is native of the Pacific and Indian oceans. In the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, it has no known predators and it reproduces rapidly. It is an invasive species – an aquatic form of the Brazilian pepper or the casaurina tree or Burmese pythons in the Everglades.

It is yet another case in which irresponsible people have released non-native critters into Florida's wilds with potentially disastrous results. They're sold for home aquariums but people often realize they're too aggressive and discard them.

In the Florida Keys recently, more than 100 divers turned out for the first Lionfish Derby, and they brought in more than 500 lionfish, keysnet.com reports.

For divers, catching the spiny critters can be a challenge. Their poisonous spikes can send victims to the hospital. "I heard one person describe that if it stung you on the arm, it wouldn't kill you but you would want to cut your arm off," a Boca Raton diver told WPLG Ch. 10.

They were first seen off Miami in the 1980s but last July a huge population was spotted of Key  Biscayne, and they've even shown up in the Loxahatchee River.

The lionfish likes to live near coral reefs, and that's a problem around Florida because it has a voracious appetite. It eats just about anything, including young grouper, snapper and other tropical fish.

With nothing apparently out there eating them, lionfish tend to take over. However, the Lionfish Derby may prove to be the solution to the problem. The fish is described as delicious with light, white and flakey meat, and derby participants wasted no time in frying them up or serving them in a citrus ceviche.

Kudzu keeps on growing

ThinkQuest

Kudzu grows so fast – as much as a foot a day – covering anything in its path.

Kudzu, that creepy crawly vine that is sometimes known to grow a foot a day and devour houses and cars, used to be quite popular in Florida and other parts of the southeast.

Back in 1876, a well-meaning Japanese delegation to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, delighted American fairgoers with the sweet-smelling, fast-growing vine they used to shade their exhibit booth.

All over the south people began planting kudzu as a porch vine, according to Florida Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff, a delightful book by David Grimes and Tom Becnel.

A Quaker couple, Charles and Lillie Pleas, moved from Indiana to Chipley in northwest Florida in the 1920s. They established Glen Arden Nursery and sold the plant to farmers by mail as forage for animals.

During the Depression, the Soil Conservation service promoted the vine as an erosion control plant species. The CCC planted kudzu far and wide.

In the 1940s, farmers could earn as much as eight bucks an acre to plant fields of the vines.

Little did anyone know that the vine would grow really, really well, and that it would grow up to be the scourge of the southeast. The problem is it chokes out other species, covers trees so densely it kills them, grows over abandoned houses and cars and anything else in its way.

Kudzu infestations got to be so bad that in 1972 the USDA declared it a nuisance weed. It's still a problem today. Just ask the public works folks in Quincy. The Gadsden County Times reports that creeping kudzu is such a problem that all city workers can do is treat it and cut it. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop it.