hey mo and thank you for you reply. HOWEVER, you missed my point entirely and it was probably my fault for not communicating to well. I’m not worried about being stung by a lionfish. I’d get over that. The reason why I made the post AND why the Bahamian government has stated their policy, as well as the Cayman government is that this fish is an invasive species with no natural predators and is devouring all of the native fish in the area. It must be a serious enough problem for to governing bodies to institute such policies. By no means am I a tree hugger (or in this case, a reef hugger) and I know that we are "the most invasive species" in the water. Do I think we should get out of the water? Heck no. do i think think we should kill everything that could harm us? lol, heck no! Am I pissed off that jerks who didn’t want to take care of the lionfish that they had in their personal aquarium and then turned them loose in non-native waters? You damned-skippy I am. That’s how alligators got into the sewer systems in MAJOR cities? I’m more concerned about my kids (my 8 yr old is a seal teamer) being able to go to the bahamas and seeing the tons of little fish with what I like to call them "fresh batteries in them". That is the only way to describe the colors to her. Do you see my point now? Also, nothing personal to you mo. Like I said, I didn’t make my initial point clear enough.