Key Largo lionfish derby, arts festival returns for 17th year

Divers, families and marine advocates will fill Key Largo this weekend for REEF’s 17th annual Florida Keys Lionfish Derby & Arts Festival, a four-day push to pull invasive lionfish off South Florida reefs and turn the cleanup into a public celebration.

The event opens Thursday, April 23, with a 5 p.m. captains’ meeting and kickoff party at Sharkey’s Sharkbite Grill in Key Largo. SciStarter says the meeting covers derby rules, safe handling practices and permitting requirements, and it also offers a virtual attendance option for teams that cannot make it in person. Fishing runs Friday and Saturday, then the public-facing festival wraps the derby on Sunday, April 26, from noon to 4 p.m. at the REEF Ocean Exploration Center, 98380 Overseas Hwy. in Key Largo.

REEF is framing the Sunday event as a family-friendly Conservation Science and Arts Festival, with lionfish scoring, fillet and dissection demonstrations, free tastings, live music, interactive exhibits, educational games, artisan vendors, food trucks and craft beer. The awards ceremony will close out the derby, and prizes will go to teams that bring in the most lionfish, along with the largest and smallest fish collected.

The conservation case is clear. NOAA says lionfish are native to the tropical waters of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, but invasive in the Atlantic, where they threaten coral reefs and commercially and recreationally important fishes. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says they can negatively affect native wildlife and habitat and encourages removal from Florida waters. Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary issues permits for organized lionfish derbies in managed waters, part of the long-running effort by REEF and sanctuary managers to work with the Keys dive community since early 2009.

REEF says more than 36,333 lionfish have been removed from local waters since derby events began. Last year’s festival removed 1,618 lionfish in two days. REEF’s archive shows 1,527 lionfish were removed in 2024 with 14 teams, and 1,898 were removed in 2023 with 22 teams, a Florida Keys event record.

The 2026 derby is supported by the Ocean Reef Conservation Foundation and the Monroe County Tourism Development Council, and REEF is using the arts component to connect the public to conservation work. Local partners include Chef Allen, Jabebo Studio, MarineLab, Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida, Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Mote Marine Laboratory, Reef Relief, the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center, Stream2Sea and local food trucks including A Moveable Feast, Cupacabana and Polar Ice. In a county where reef health, tourism and local identity overlap, the derby again turns invasive-species removal into something the whole community can join.