If you were like me as a small child, your mother or father may have had to spoon-feed you some unsavory foods from time to time... like broccoli! Recently, I've received a few google alerts about lionfish in which divers are feeding predators lionfish straight off their spears.

For example, in this video, some wreck divers feed a decently sized shark a recently speared lionfish:

My first thought is: Wow! I'd be terrified!

My second thought is: Wow! Is this a good thing? Obviously we want predators to eat lionfish (see post below), but is there a good way and a bad way to achieve this? Do we want reef sharks to associate divers who are spearfishing with a free meal? This reminds me of a debate when I lived in New Zealand about the relationship between shark diving operations chumming the water and paua (aka abalone) divers being investigated by sharks.

Is there a right way and wrong way to encourage predators to eat lionfish?