Lionfish Derby & Festival is a Wrap

Black Immigrant Daily News

The content originally appeared on: Antigua News Room

The long awaited LIONFISH DERBY AND FESTIVAL IS A WRAP.

Four years of planning and over in 4 days!

The event was a resounding success with 864 lioinfish being removed from the reefs!

The bad news is this shows Antigua and Barbuda has a serious LIONFISH INVASION in the reefs surrounding our islands and continued removal needs to be encouraged.

The festival was held on Sunday afternoon in the historic Nelsons Dockyard with an exciting afternoon of festivities.

There was music provided by DJ NEX and LUCKY EDDY and food and a rose wine bar by Premier Beverages and plenty of other activities.

There were educational lectures series on the marine environment, a jewelry making class using LIONFISH FINS and booths selling Lionfish items.

A MERMAID COVE TENT featured a large aquarium with LIVE LIONFISH and a virtual LIONFISH hunting game “LIONFISH PATROL”.

There were also 3 mermaids on hand to interact with the public.

Esteemed Jewelry maker Miranda Askie had a booth featuring her jewelry including LIONFISH Jewelry from Kajexpressions.com from Belize.

The ELKHORN MARINE CONSERVANCY (EMC) and GREEN FINS had environmental booths on show and the school children poster contest booth featured the posters of the winners.

The largest cash purse of any event in Antigua presented $34,000 EC cash prizes to the winners of the HUNT (the most lionfish, the largest and smallest Lionfish) and to the 3 winning CHEFS who took part in the LIONFISH COOKOFF. and served lionfish tasters to the public.

In addition school children were awarded prizes in 2 age groups.

It was action-packed fun-filled afternoon. The prize giving was the culmination of the day with the Honorable Minister Max Fernandez presenting the cash prizes.

The whole event was documented and will be shown on a major network by prominent British Filmmaker Dean Arnett whose participation was made possible by arrangements done by Her Excellency Karen -Mae Hill, Antiguas UK High Commissioner with a generous donation from Ms Ann Chapman.

Organiser Martha Watkins Gilkes declared the event a mega success and commented “It was meant to be a one time event but we are hopeful that if we can find the funds and donations it may be an annual event as the LIONFISH problem is an ongoing issue. I would like to thank the MANY who helped out in so many areas to make it a success.”

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