Meet Reza, one of the inventors of StingMaster. We spoke with him at DEMA in 2021. In 2016, Reza was on an airplane, reading the in-flight magazine, when he came across an article describing the invasion of the lionfish in the Gulf of Mexico as well as the fish’s excruciatingly painful sting. Having worked on a Texas coral snake venom in the past, and mostly being a curious scientist, he checked the literature to see if anyone had figured out exactly how this venom works to cause pain, but his search came up empty.

Fast forward to 2017, when he proposed a project to a student in his lab, Stephanie: figure out how lionfish venom causes pain. She accepted the challenge, and they managed to make a major breakthrough that they published in a paper in 2018, which was the cover of the November issue of the scientific, peer-reviewed journal PAIN, outlining exactly what kind of pain lionfish venom causes, what pain-sensing cells it targets, and began to uncover its mechanism of action.

Ivana from Sunny Curacao is someone who is passionate about the oceans and removing lionfish from them. Listen to her great advice and the passion she has to save the reefs.

Stephanie completed her BSc in Physiology at McGill University and is now a PhD Candidate at McGill University. She is the recipient of the prestigious Vanier Scholarship from the Canadian Institute for Health Research and is one of 3 Canadians invited to attend the 2020 Lindau Nobel Laureate Conference. For the past 3 years, her PhD research has focused on studying lionfish venom to understand how it causes so much pain on a molecular level.

Alex Fogg is well known in the lionfish world. His work in the pan handle part of Florida is wide and varied from deploying artificial reefs to cleaning up those reefs of lionfish. 

Zookeepers are the gold standard when it comes to hunting lionfish! Tim Robinson recently purchased Zookeeper and is taking it to the next level in the fight against the invasive lionfish. We met up with Tim at DEMA 2021 in Las Vegas. He is a great guy with a great business mind and will take everything to the next level. 

https://lionfishzk.com/

Anthony works to make sure we always have lionfish in supply for you! He is also the one planning out our future products that will help restore our oceans! He is a driving force when it comes to removing lionfish from the reefs by creating jobs and opportunities for locals to better their income by saving the reefs! 

Lionfish Bling with Phil Karp, a Citizen Scientist. Phil has a vast amount of information, connections and experience around the world when it comes to helping locals improve their lives by working with more resources - lionfish fins. Yes, Lionfish jewelry is becoming more and more popular and Phil has the entire story!

The best Lionfish Crew in Belize that week was Sal, Phil, Anthony and Willie! They did a great job of building, testing and deploying lionfish traps in Belize! Meet the crew that made it such a success!

Sal Delello President of ReefSave Inc

The current version of Dr. Giddings Purse Trap resolves the FAD drag problem by using a flat panel allowing flat closing of the jaws on deployment. A float was added to the line to the surface that keeps the FAD erect, and a ring was added at the top of the FAD to assure complete closure of the trap. Extra netting was added to cause the netting to billow out when pulled to the surface. Billowing keep the lionfish near the FAD until the jaws were completely closed.

Shikha and Sadie were volunteers at ReefCI for one of the weeks I was there. This is their story.

Environmental and Social Goals

ReefCI has been and will continue to be focused on our hands-on conservation projects that protect the millions of species that rely on healthy functioning marine ecosystems. ReefCI firmly believes that hands-on education and activism is a key component in maintaining a sustainable future for humankind. To that end, ReefCI provides the experiential learning through our volunteer-based conservation projects, which will enable global citizens to impact decisions about conservation and world issues.  We encourage everyone to become a part of our community of people who care about the future of our planet’s oceans.