As it turns out, some of the best cooks in the world think lionfish, a venomous predatory fish which is breeding out of control and destroying marine ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, is delicious.
The chefs gathered in Bermuda on Wednesday for a competition dubbed the “Lionfish Throwdown” where they challenged one another to come up with the tastiest solution to the problem of invasive lionfish.
“Every chef likes to be sustainable in what they are doing,” said Chris Kenny, head chef on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.
Photo: Reuters/Philippe Rouja/ RSE
“Lionfish are going to keep spreading, and it’s not going to stop unless people step in and do something about it.”
Native to the Pacific Ocean, lionfish have no natural predators in Atlantic waters and females can spawn nearly 2 million eggs per year.
“On reefs where sport divers are actively diving with harpoons to try and control the lionfish, they actually do a pretty good job,” said Colin Angle, executive chairman of iRobot Corp, a consumer robot company that builds and designs robots.
“But that’s a very small percentage of the ocean ... We needed something far more flexible that could go far deeper, longer.”
Angle, who recently founded Robots In Service of the Environment (RSE), a nonprofit organization set up to protect the oceans, built a machine named the Guardian specifically designed to hunt and capture lionfish.
“We basically drive the Guardian up to the fish, position it between two electrodes, apply a current and stun the fish, knocking the fish out,” said Angle.
“Then there is a motor at the back of the robot which creates a current into the robot and it sucks that fish into the robot.”
The device is still in its early stages of development. Its first prototype, which was unveiled earlier this week, can capture and hold about 10 fish before resurfacing.
Angle said he intends to make the robots affordable enough to entice fisherman to buy the machines in hopes that they will hunt the invasive species in greater numbers.
He also wants to turn lionfish hunting into an online sport.
“With advances in wireless technology, we can actually have an app where people pay to go hunt lionfish and capture the fish by remotely operating the robot,” he said, adding that, if robots can catch lionfish, a new market in which chefs can turn an environmental hazard into gourmet cuisine might emerge.
One of the biggest sore spots in Taiwan’s historical friendship with the US came in 1979 when US president Jimmy Carter broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government so that the US could establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan’s derecognition came purely at China’s insistence, and the US took the deal. Retired American diplomat John Tkacik, who for almost decade surrounding that schism, from 1974 to 1982, worked in embassies in Taipei and Beijing and at the Taiwan Desk in Washington DC, recently argued in the Taipei Times that “President Carter’s derecognition
JUNE 30 to JULY 6 After being routed by the Japanese in the bloody battle of Baguashan (八卦山), Hsu Hsiang (徐驤) and a handful of surviving Hakka fighters sped toward Tainan. There, he would meet with Liu Yung-fu (劉永福), leader of the Black Flag Army who had assumed control of the resisting Republic of Formosa after its president and vice-president fled to China. Hsu, who had been fighting non-stop for over two months from Taoyuan to Changhua, was reportedly injured and exhausted. As the story goes, Liu advised that Hsu take shelter in China to recover and regroup, but Hsu steadfastly
You can tell a lot about a generation from the contents of their cool box: nowadays the barbecue ice bucket is likely to be filled with hard seltzers, non-alcoholic beers and fluorescent BuzzBallz — a particular favorite among Gen Z. Two decades ago, it was WKD, Bacardi Breezers and the odd Smirnoff Ice bobbing in a puddle of melted ice. And while nostalgia may have brought back some alcopops, the new wave of ready-to-drink (RTD) options look and taste noticeably different. It is not just the drinks that have changed, but drinking habits too, driven in part by more health-conscious consumers and
On Sunday, President William Lai (賴清德) delivered a strategically brilliant speech. It was the first of his “Ten Lectures on National Unity,” (團結國家十講) focusing on the topic of “nation.” Though it has been eclipsed — much to the relief of the opposing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — by an ill-advised statement in the second speech of the series, the days following Lai’s first speech were illuminating on many fronts, both domestic and internationally, in highlighting the multi-layered success of Lai’s strategic move. “OF COURSE TAIWAN IS A COUNTRY” Never before has a Taiwanese president devoted an entire speech to