About The Invasive Fin

Meet Brittany

Hello! My name is Brittany Diorio, the creator of The Invasive Fin. The ocean has always been an enormous passion of mine, and I have dedicated my life to helping it. I earned my degree in Marine Biology with a concentration on Sea Turtle Rehabilitation. After graduation, I worked in many areas around Florida rehabilitating sick sea turtles and releasing them back to the wild. I assumed I would work with sea turtles for the rest of my life, but the invasive species, lionfish, found me by complete accident.

My husband and I moved from Florida to Curacao in early 2020 to be scuba instructors. We were obviously not planning on the pandemic making tourism come to a complete halt, so we had to get a little creative to earn a living. Since lionfish are an invasive species in all of the Caribbean and North America, we began hunting them to sell to the local supermarkets. Not only did this help us make ends meet, but we got to continue our passion for helping the ocean. In 2022, we moved to St. Croix and continued hunting lionfish. We ate the meat (which is delicious – you should try it if you haven’t!), but I wanted to see if I could do something with their gorgeous fins so no part of the fish was wasted. I realized very quickly that there was a market for lionfish jewelry here on St. Croix. I began creating and haven’t looked back since. Sometimes I pinch myself when I realize how quickly this business has taken flight. I went from offering just 5 products to over 90 products in my first six months.

You are just as much a part of this reef-saving journey! Each product is handmade from the fins of lionfish caught right here in St. Croix. And with every purchase of this one of a kind jewelry, you are helping decrease the number of these invasive lionfish in our ocean. Thank you so much for helping make this dream grow!