Author: Ben Raines
Source: AL.com/Press-Register [1]
July 22, 2012

"A small fish nestled among swaying stalks of sea whip coral about 11 miles off the Alabama coast may be poised to shift the balance of life in the Gulf of Mexico.

While it has been less than two years since scuba diver Lawren McCaghren made the first confirmed sighting of a lionfish off Alabama, the animals are now so common that McCaghren said he routinely sees 50 or 60 during a single dive on local reefs.

The sudden colonization of the northern Gulf has scientists using words like alarmed, worried and afraid. First noted off the Atlantic Coast in the 1990s, lionfish swept across the Caribbean in three short years."

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