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The 2024 Winter Lionfish Throw Down (October 14 - December 31, 2024) is a Lionfish hunting tournament held throughout the State of Florida waters. Our goal is to encourage the culling of Lionfish through the winter months to mitigate the damage done by Lionfish all year long. After the FWC’s Summer Challenge the focus on culling Lionfish declines and our goal is to keep up the hunting momentum throughout the whole year.  The Throw Down will mirror many of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Lionfish Challenge rules and is being done with their full support. 

Whether called wild pigs, feral hogs, or wild boars, these opportunistic and invasive omnivores live in groups called sounders. Removing whole sounders is the most effective management method, but requires follow-up trapping and hunting due to their incredible reproductive potential.

The Florida Python Challenge® (August 9-18, 2024) is an exciting conservation effort which helps protect the rare Everglades habitat and the animals that live there from these invasive, nonnative snakes.
See also: Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez Announces Registration Is Open for the 2024 Florida Python Challenge (May 30, 2024)

Researchers have published a first- of-its-kind study that shows that near-infrared (NIR) spectrum cameras can help python hunters more effectively track down these invasive snakes, especially at night.

Maryland's commercial harvesters and fisheries managers are collaborating to preserve the commercial fisheries of the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Innovative management and marketing techniques are being brought together to energize the commercial fishing industry. Commercial landings for invasive fishes include blue catfish and northern snakeheads. Learn more about becoming a commercial harvester and making money on selling invasive fishes. Commercial fishing has expanded to include invasive fishes, which are highly palatable and ones that Marylanders hope can be harvested at levels that minimize their ecological impacts to the natural resources we want to protect.

The Lionfish Challenge is a free summer-long (May 24-September 2, 2024) lionfish tournament open to recreational and commercial competitors of all ages around the state of Florida. Our goal remains the same — remove as many lionfish as we can in just four months. Are you up for the Challenge? See also:

• FWC Announces 2024 Lionfish Challenge Presented by Zookeeper (May 23, 2024)
• Lionfish Tournaments and Events
• FWC Unveils 2023 Lionfish Challenge King and Commercial Champion, Celebrating a Record-breaking Year (Oct 19, 2023)

NOAA's Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) is partnering with Lionfish Invitational, and others to use trained divers to help conduct research and remove invasive lionfish within FGBMNS. This multi-day event is a science-based research expedition in which 11 dive teams work to remove as many lionfish as possible, while also recording helpful data on lionfish activity and sightings. In addition, a science team of 8 divers conducts surveys to determine what species, quantities and sizes of fish are present at each designated site before and after the removals. Applications are due Mar 1, 2024. The 2024 expeditions will take place on the following dates:

• ​June 23-27, 2024
• August 11-15, 2024
• September 8-12, 2024

Chapter 20 (pages 232-244) in:  Invasive Plant Management Issues and Challenges in the United States: 2011 Overview; Westbrooks, R., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2011.

Python Patrol is a no-cost training program that aims to create a network of trained individuals throughout south Florida who know how to identify Burmese pythons, report sightings, and in some cases, capture and humanely kill the snakes. Python Patrol training is offered throughout south and southwest Florida.

The Lionfish Challenge 2022, the seventh annual, is a summer-long tournament that rewards divers for their lionfish harvests. The tournament boasted a total of 707 registered participants, the most in the program’s history. 196 divers conducted a total of 676 trips throughout the state during the 3-month tournament and brought in a whopping 25,299 lionfish.

Thousands of invasive fish have been removed from the Chesapeake Bay watershed at the Conowingo Dam earlier this year and donated to local food banks through a continuing partnership between Maryland Department of Natural Resources and others. During the 2024 season, which ran from March to June, more than 18,000 pounds of invasive fish (blue catfish, flathead catfish, and northern snakehead) were removed from Maryland waters.

The National Feral Swine Damage Management Program, within the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Wildlife Services (WS) program, has unleashed detector dogs as a new tool to help stop the spread of feral swine, one of the United States' most destructive and ravenous invasive creatures. This is a new tool, and WS will continue to train the dogs and use them to detect nutria, feral swine, and possibly other invasive species, in the future.