possible source of introductions  (by: Matt Hill  -   8/18/2011)

I was fishing on the Chattahoochee once and a nice lady who I believe was Buddhist was releasing tilapia from a rubbermaid tub into the river. We had a conversation about ecology etc. after she told me that it was a part of her religion to release a captive animal each time she ate or accidentally killed anything.
I presume old Sidhartha would not approve.

Bass Killing Fish  (by: Mike Redmon  -   3/22/2011)

I have lived in S Fl for 25 years and never had issues with Talapia till about 2 years ago. Now the numberous lakes I have always been able to catch great bass in are infested with talapia. The bass are basically gone and bass fishing in the fututure is going to be tougher and tougher.

wacky  (by: .com  -   11/9/2010)

That's nt wat it do 4real on eerrrthang

dewayne  (by: Rusty Shackleford  -   2/2/2010)

The problem is that the last cold snap was so prolonged it killed off alot of that particular species. The big ones were most hit. They are pretty good eating, but kinda hard to catch. I'm sure they have some in the lakes of St. Lucie and Martin counties. The fillets are for sale in every grocery store if you want to try some farm raised ones. You will possibly have to wait for the surviving ones to grow before fishing for them. My concern is whether somebody at one time introduced a foreign fish into our lakes not yet knowing if it could handle a cold snap like the one we just experienced. All it created is a buffet for the buzzards along the beaches. The buzzards actually had a reason to swarm over Highlands County other than in anticipation of our financial demise. I don't know how Ft. Pierce is, apparently their academic programs are lacking, but our town is in poor shape. You may wish to reconsider a move over here. It is financial suicide.

eat them  (by: dewayne hough  -   2/2/2010)

i never eaten one before, but i guess you can so whats the problem? when i lived in sebring me and my cousins, dad, grandpa would fish all the time has people stop fishing over there? we use to enter touraments. we use to always fish at lake bonnet (between sebring and avon park).

  (by: Rusty "need hooked on phonics" Shackleford  -   2/1/2010)

I forgot an "m", go ahead and start with the "pot calling the kettle black" comments. I deserve a slap on the wrist.

TILAPIA  (by: MIKE SIPE  -   2/1/2010)

NILE PERCH?
MCT photo While tilapia are a prized food fish, they are much easier to catch with a net than with traditional hook-and-line methods.
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published: Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tilapia cause problems for native bass population
By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY
christopher.tuffley@newssun.com
SEBRING -- For a fish, tilapia is shrouded in mystery.
It's not that the fish is new or rare. Tilapia is sometimes called St. Peter's fish because of a reference to it in the Bible, and some populations thrive to the point of crowding out native species.
The mystery is how a species native to the Levant and western Africa spread so readily throughout South Florida's rivers, streams and lakes.
No one knows for sure.
(Yes, some one in the state government does know but they are not about to tell it like it is.)
This is part of the deciet that still has people on public payroll saying things like you have in your article .
The actual introduction was as a result of a florida fresh water fish & game officer deciding what would be good for florida. Part of this occurance was the misunderstanding of the potential of nile perch as a game fish and at the same time mixing tilapia up with the name “NILE PERCH.”
.
It Seems that the officer thought that the fish (nile perch) could be a potential sports fish for florida. part of this misunderstanding was the name that was first used for the tilapia species tilapia nilotica which for some reason was going by the name of “nile perch” at a university which will go nameless here.
It seems this name “NILE PERCH” was used for the species of tilapia (tilapia nilotica), but the actual fish that went by the name, back in Africa “nile perch” was a predator fish. It was from the same area in africa that the tilapia nilotica was found in, so perhaps that played a roll in the mistaken identity of the tilapia.
Anyway, the officer, decided to have some tilapia nilotica (wrongly identified as “NILE PERCH”.)Brought to Florida and stocked in a lake near the town of Mulberry Florida.
From this point the information gets a bit more sketchy but involves a number of Fish and Game Officer explaing to local fishermen how good the “NILE PERCH”
were as a predator and the fishermen decided to get some from the lake by cast netting them and transporting them to many, many, many lakes throughout Florida, and so The misinformation gave the fishermen , whose economic life depended on this new “predator” fish.
Of course by then the “”damage or improvement” was already in place, thetas when the real misinformation started.
The actual facts are that because the tilapia nilotica was and is a member of the Genera “tilapia” which has several built in advantages over most native species.
of fish.
Most of the lakes in Florida suffer from too much drain off of fertiliser from over fertilised golf courses, lawns, citrus groves cattle feed lots and many other sources of what is to a pond excellent fertiliser which simulates Algae and other plant growth.
One advantage which brought the tilapia immediate attention was their ability to filter the phytoplankton (algae) from the water and send the algae in a constant stream down the “tilapias” throat thus furnishing the tilapia with an unending supply of food, this never ending story coupled with the ability of each female producing a mouth full number of fertilised eggs every two weeks from the time of its first brood meaning that the tilapia can and do produce, with an unending supply of algae, from each over fertilised body of water in the state an unending supply of more tilapia..
So, when just a few tilapia breeders are introduced into a pond or lake, in the period of a year or so they have begun to utilise all of that feed (algae) and are producing millions and millions of new tilapia each week.
So when a bass fisherman goes to fish for his favourite fish he sees green water an zillions of tilapia of all sizes. From his perspective and in is time frame he sees a pond or lake completely ruined by this non-native pesky fish and he calls the fish and game and complains
After enough of these calls the Fish and Game folks decide to do something about this “problem and get together in a “Commission” meeting and pass a law against the new biological menace, the tilapia. Only now the tilapia are almost everywhere in the state and increasing in numbers daily.
The cat is out of the Bag, now and refuses to get back in. So we have a state wide presence of tilapia and fr many years we had “laws” saying that they were all illegal. Believe me, it took almst 20 years of putting up with intractable “laws” that only ended up hurting us by slowing down our ability to compete with other countries when we have one of the most hospitabile envirouments in this country for growing tilapia inexpensivly and thus to begin replacing all of the foreign trade with quality products at competive prices.
My estimate is that if Florida government actually supported Tilapia aquaclture wit loans to breeders and growers, that We (Florida) could actually capture a considerable portion of the two to three billion dollars worth of tilapia that are currently being grown in other countries and are currently being targeted for America,..But what could we do with an extra two billion in Revenue and the thousands of jobs and increases in property values that such a prize could bring to us.

According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, the first finding of a tilapia in the American wild occurred at the Snapper Creek Canal in Miami-Dade County in 1974.
A good source of protein, with a mild but pleasant taste, tilapia had already become a fish of interest for commercial fishermen and aquaculturists. Because they are herbivores, tilapia are not a sport fish. Typically they are caught using nets. But hook-and-line fishermen have found bread balls make good bait.
Starting in about 1972, they were imported into Florida as an experiment in fish farming.
Today tilapia is the third most important fish in aquaculture, surpassed only by carps and salmonids.
Tilapia are projected to be the leader in Farm raised fish by 2015, Florida could have at least half of that revenue.

  (by: Rusty Shackleford  -   2/1/2010)

Great story Christopher, lots of good information on the species. Jim, leave the smart ass coments to me. I find no need for them here, Tuffley provided alot of interesting facts.

how they are spread  (by: Jim  -   1/31/2010)

Its pretty simple, Mr and Mrs bird get the little eggs stuck on there little feets while wading in the shallow water. When they decide to fly to the next feeding spot in another lake, they take along a few baby fish with them. One would think a County fish expert or the paper would understand this.