Eat Em to Beat Em!

It's hard to come up with a better title than the actual event name in this case -- Eat Em to Beat Em.  On Saturday I headed out to meet Pam at this event that she had drawn my attention to a couple of weeks earlier.  Helen, a fellow animal person and environmentally conscious type, was also happy to come.  We also ran into a lot of other hospital people there, which is nice.

Helen and Pam

So what is Eat Em to Beat Em?  Well, it's a local initiative dreamed up by a group of people much younger than me who call themselves Groundswell.  The whole event screamed youthful energy and initiative, and I loved that.  Groundswell itself sounds a bit like some edgy techy term to make a movement go viral.  The idea is to deal with an invasive species in Bermuda, the Lionfish.

Groundswell stage

Lionfish are pretty, but they belong in Pacific waters not here, where they get into a reef, eat anything in sight and have no natural predators themselves.  Reefs are nurseries for other species of fish, like the local protected parrotfish, and so a giant hungry baby eating predator is a bad thing here.  As well, the Lionfish lay 30,000 eggs at a time, up to three times a week.  So they could be the end of reef life as Bermuda knows it.  They are not easily caught by traditional methods, and so locally people are encouraged to dive deep with spears and go get them.  And....then eat them.

Lionfish weigh in

I must say they were a tasty white fish.  They are not poisonous as some people think, but rather venomous, which is why you cut the spike off before doing your dinner prep.  They had cookbooks, tasting booths, live music, cash bar, and most importantly, the hunting tournament.  96 people turned up to scuba and spearfish.

The hunters

The awards ceremony was priceless -- the MC was one of the organizers, and in that aforementioned youthful enthusiasm, he declared the winner of the largest fish caught, which was just "gigantic" rather than a set length, and awarded other great prizes...like smallest fish caught (saying it's a harder target right?), least motivated team (who arrived late and missed the end of tournament fish weigh in, mostly just drank beer but they did catch some fish and we're thankful for that -- and of course they were so unmotivated they couldn't even be found for prizes), plus most motivated, best overall, youngest hunter, and supreme huntress for a female diver.

The awesome MC

I was happy to be out and support an up and coming group working for the environment.  Don't miss it next year!