Heather Rogers offers a detailed article on the idea that “catching and cooking aggressive critters such as lionfish won’t be enough to stop them.” She extends her argument to include other invasive species such as Himalayan blackberries, bastard cabbage, feral hogs, and the Burmese python in the Florida everglades. Here are excerpts:

[. . .] As with any invasive species, a major obstacle to containing lionfish is that they’re extremely efficient breeders. A single female can produce 2 million eggs per year. In their new waters, they also lack natural predators—with their venom-filled spines, they easily repel enemies—except, that is, if humans intervene. People could harvest these destructive nonnatives for food. Lad Akins, director of special projects at the Florida-based Reef Environmental Education Foundation, believes this is an important part of solving the crisis. “We need to do our best to control what we created,” he said.

In the…