Dottie Benjamin

Dottie Benjamin holding a lionfish

Charter & Sales Manager – Olympus Dive Center

Association, Company, Affiliations: Olympus Dive Center, PADI, Lionfish University

Location: North Carolina

Your favorite quote: Life is a Mystery to be Lived, not Solved

Your message or mission statement: My Goal (Hope) is to educate divers about how local removal efforts can reduce lionfish densities and help minimize their impact on our marine habitats.

Your latest endeavors and where they take place: I wrote a PADI Distinctive Specialty for Lionfish Removal and love teaching divers how to safely capture and remove these fish while minimizing the diver’s impact on local marine structures and organisms. I teach the Lionfish Removal Specialist course through Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City, North Carolina.

What efforts are you most proud of? I’m proud to be the Lionfish Huntress of 2011 in Little Cayman, Cayman Islands. Also, I have personally eradicated 807 Lionfish and make a mean Lionfish Ceviche :)

Anything else you’d like us to know? I lived and worked in Little Cayman when Lionfish made their appearance on our reefs in 2008. I have seen first hand what Lionfish can do to the fish population in a very short time. One of my favorite fish, the Arrow Blenny, virtually disappeared for several years after the Lionfish invasion. But, through a concerted effort by the local dive operators in Little Cayman coming together – the Arrow Blenny has started to make a comeback in Little Cayman over the last couple of years. As Lionfish University likes to say – “Eat’em to Beat’em!

Dottie Benjamin at Olympus Diving
Dottie Benjamin holding a lionfish
lionfish ceviche
Photo by Scuba Dot

Share this post