Florida removed a record 36,187 invasive lionfish during its 2026 Lionfish Challenge, as 533 registered participants joined the annual effort to limit the predator’s impact on native marine life.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced the results on Oct. 19, reporting more than 5,000 additional catches compared with the 2025 challenge. The competition ran from May 22 to Sept. 14, with participants completing 1,468 dive trips.
The FWC organizes the challenge to encourage recreational divers and commercial harvesters to remove lionfish from Florida waters. Participants earn prizes based on their catches and compete for titles across recreational, commercial, youth and veteran categories.
“By removing 36,187 invasive lionfish from Florida’s waters, participants are helping reduce pressure on native marine species, protect biodiversity, and preserve the health of our precious marine ecosystems,” FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto said in the agency’s announcement.
How the Lionfish Challenge works
The FWC expanded the 2026 competition to recognize six champions across six categories: Lionfish King, Lionfish Queen, Commercial Champion, Junior Champion, Veteran Champion and Top Checkpoint.
The program is free to enter, and participants can compete from anywhere in Florida. Recreational divers submit their catches through designated checkpoints, where staff receive lionfish tails as evidence of removals. Commercial participants compete according to the weight of their harvest, which the FWC records in pounds.
This system allows the competition to recognize different types of participation. Recreational awards count individual fish, whereas the commercial category measures weight harvested. The Top Checkpoint award recognizes the participating location that collects the highest number of lionfish tails.
Hunter Ledbetter, from Monroe County, won two awards. He became Lionfish King after removing 1,541 fish and also earned the Veteran Champion title as the leading military or veteran participant.
Helen Rodney, from Broward County, won Lionfish Queen with 1,488 lionfish, finishing 53 behind Ledbetter. David Garrett, from Volusia County, won Commercial Champion after harvesting 1,136 pounds (about 515 kilograms) of lionfish. Meagan Huffman, from Texas, received the Junior Champion award with 185 fish.
Dive Pros, a Pensacola business, won the Top Checkpoint category after accepting more than 5,000 lionfish tails during the season.
The FWC awards prizes throughout the competition according to the number of lionfish removed. Its 2026 results announcement does not specify the monetary value of the prizes. The agency encourages divers, anglers and commercial harvesters to participate as part of its wider effort to limit the species’ impact on native marine life.
Why lionfish threaten marine ecosystems
Lionfish are native to the Indo-Pacific region but have spread throughout the western Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Their expansion threatens native marine ecosystems because they prey on fish and invertebrates, including species that play important roles in reef food webs.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) records the first confirmed lionfish sighting in U.S. waters off Florida in 1985. The aquarium trade is considered a likely route of introduction, although researchers have not established the exact circumstances of the invasion.
Lionfish have a broad diet and can reproduce rapidly. Their venomous spines also require care during capture and handling, although their flesh can be eaten after proper preparation.
The FWC’s challenge encourages people to remove the fish directly from Florida waters. The record catch demonstrates the scale of the competition, but it does not establish how much the statewide lionfish population has changed.
In Colombia, chefs serve lionfish to encourage its removal
Colombia faces the same invasive species in its Caribbean waters. On Providencia Island, a local initiative seeks to make lionfish a more common choice on restaurant menus, giving fishers an additional reason to catch it.
Marine biologist Josselyn Bryan Arboleda and her partner, Jostiffer Garcia Henry, have been capturing lionfish and promoting its consumption as a way to protect local coral reefs. Their approach links invasive species removal directly with the island’s fishing and culinary sectors.
At Caribbean Place Donde Martin in Providencia, chef Martin Quintero prepares lionfish in several ways, including ceviche, fried fillets, garlic sauce, steamed dishes and skewers, according to a report by El Pais. Quintero describes the fish as having a delicate flavor similar to snapper.
The initiative also addresses a practical challenge: making lionfish removal economically worthwhile. Bryan and Garcia want more diners to try the fish so restaurants can create steady demand and give fishers a stronger incentive to bring in their catches.
The approach complements Colombia’s formal response to the invasion. In 2013, the government adopted a management and control plan for lionfish in the Colombian Caribbean through Resolution 675, which established measures for capturing and disposing of the species.
Florida’s challenge uses a competition to reward removals, while the Providencia initiative seeks to build demand through food. Both approaches aim to encourage people to remove an invasive predator, but the Colombian effort depends in part on whether diners and restaurants create a market large enough to make catching lionfish worthwhile.