The international assault on the invasive lionfish, which has a ravenous appetite but no natural enemies and has been creating ecological and economic havoc along the East Coast and Caribbean, has apparently taken a big bite out of the spiny creature's numbers, say reports out of Jamaica.

Observers from the island nation report a noticeable dip in the lionfish population, which is native to the Indian Ocean but since the 1990s has settled in the Western Atlantic and grown exponentially.

About four years ago a campaign was launched to cut the numbers of lionfish in the region, according to a story by the Associated Press. Since then, Jamaica's National Environment and Planning Agency has seen a 66 percent drop in sightings of the venomous fish in regional waters.

Back in August of 2012, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved a temporary rule that waived the recreational fishing license requirement when targeting lionfish with pole spears, handheld nets, Hawaiian slings or other devices specifically designed for catching lionfish, also known as pterois, which are a culinary delicacy, but also have poisonous spines.

The Florida rule also removed any bag limits for the exotic fish; recreational anglers previously could not catch more than 100 pounds of lionfish without a commercial license.

Indeed, people interviewed for the AP story said they suspected the decline in lionfish was due to people's newfound culinary appreciation for lionfish, which, when properly -- and carefully -- cleaned, yield a white meat prized by many as a delicacy.

"After learning how to handle them, the fishermen have definitely been going after them harder, especially spear fishermen. I believe persons here have caught on to the whole idea of consuming them," Dayne Buddo, a Jamaican marine ecologist at the University of the West Indies who specializes in marine invaders, told the AP.

Buddo added he doesn't think the lionfish will ever be eradicated, "but I think for the most part we can control it, especially in marine protected areas where people are going after it very intensively and consistently,"

A study released in January asserted that in reefs where lionfish were kept below what scientist consider "threshold density," other populations of native fish increased between 50 and 70 percent, said a news release from Oregon State University. Comparatively, in regions where there hasn't been an effort to limit lionfish expansion, local fish continued to disappear.

"Many invasions such as lionfish are occurring at a speed and magnitude that outstrips the resources available to contain and eliminate them," researchers said in the news release. "For such invasions, complete [removal from the region] is not necessary to minimize negative ecological changes within priority habitats."