Goliath groupers

[dumpsterDiver]

I can make dives in palm beach county where I see 5, 10 or 30 of them on a single dive. Their population has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. They are even more common in the gulf of mexico. They have become a significant nuisance to fisherman because they will take hooked fish. They will also take speared fish from spearfisherman and they have very little fear of divers now.

I am surprised that the opportunity to view 100-350 lb grouper close up is not more highly promoted by the local dive charters. When it becomes clear that they can sustain some level of harvest, I think that the State will allow it. It is my opinion that some type of harvest will be allowed within the next 5 yrs or so, unless a terrible red tide wipes them out in the gulf.

 

[Bill51]

I’m really torn on this one and I don’t think the right questions are being asked – let alone studied.

For several years now I’ve heard anecdotal stories from fishermen (spear and line) that areas with goliaths in them now were very short on snapper, other grouper, and a few other species that had previously been in the area. Last summer during a period when the Gulf Stream was fairly close (in relative terms) to shore up here we had reports of goliaths where no one could ever remember them being this far north. Then in September of last year I saw something on Juno Ledges off West Palm I’ve never seen before. We came across a pair of 4’-5’ goliaths team hunting on a large bait ball of juvenile snapper much the way dolphins will block and feed. In the 10 minutes or so that we watched, these monsters all but destroyed the snapper ball, and from the thumping we had heard before we got to the ball and after we left I have no idea how much they had consumed. During the entire time we watched the feeding, they also kept a 6’ reef shark at bay that was trying to get his share of the bait ball.

Given the glacial speed regulatory bodies work and the knee jerk reactions many with less first hand knowledge than most of us here have, I’m concerned that if we wait to long to take action we’re going to see a large cross section of fish nearly wiped out by the goliaths – and if the regulatory bodies act in their normal manner they’ll over react to that and open the season on them to long and then everything will be a mess. I think we need to get a very small and controlled harvest of the goliaths started quickly with a tagging program where we know exactly how many are harvested and where they’re gotten. It wouldn’t hurt to do like what REEF is now doing with the lionfish where some of them are being analyzed for stomach content to determine exactly what fish are the most directly endangered from the goliaths, and we need to get some accurate counts on both the goliaths and the other fish in the areas, especially those that share the same food supply as the goliaths, for a baseline for future changes in the take limits.

I know I’m older and my memory is probably going (at least my wife says so), but the goliaths I’ve come across during the past few years appears to far exceed what I used to see around here in the early to mid 60s when we were looking for them to shoot. I can’t imagine that there were that many spear fishermen taking them back in the early 60s, so what has really caused this huge upturn in them? Is it really due to the no-take laws or is something else happening here?

 

[archman]

Probably the no-take laws. Very few fish have them. It's so nice to see an environmental regulation work so visibly. Let's put a no-take on Warsaw grouper and see what happens.

 

[Bill51]

Probably the no-take laws. Very few fish have them. It's so nice to see an environmental regulation work so visibly. Let's put a no-take on Warsaw grouper and see what happens.

But what happens if the Warsaw and goliath groupers over harvest the other game fish and start eating all the tropicals?

 

[archman]

But what happens if the Warsaw and goliath groupers over harvest the other game fish and start eating all the tropicals?

Ah, that's one of the arguments currently being voiced to support commercial whaling.

"Now that the minke whale stocks are recovered, they're eating all the krill. Waaaa!!!"

or...

"Sea otters are eating up all our abalone! Now we'll never get the fishery reopened. Damn you Endangered Species Act!"

Oh man this is funny. I say let the jewfish eat everything else until there's nothing left but lionfish. After they kamikaze themselves inhaling those things, the west Atlantic can reset its ichthyofaunal equilibrium.

 

[Rocha]

Ah, that's one of the arguments currently being voiced to support commercial whaling.

"Now that the minke whale stocks are recovered, they're eating all the krill. Waaaa!!!"

or...

"Sea otters are eating up all our abalone! Now we'll never get the fishery reopened. Damn you Endangered Species Act!"

Oh man this is funny. I say let the jewfish eat everything else until there's nothing left but lionfish. After they kamikaze themselves inhaling those things, the west Atlantic can reset its ichthyofaunal equilibrium.

Hahahaha! This one made my day! They were here before, in big numbers, along with all the other grouper species. I completely agree that given enough time populations will reach an equilibrium.

The problem with re-opening fisheries for species like the Goliath is that they are waaaaayy too easy to overfish. If (and that's a big IF) data shows it is really contributing to the decline of other species, I think the control should be done by the authorities. Reopening the fisheries will only cause the population to collapse again, and I am willing to bet we won't see a recover in snappers after all the Goliath are gone...

offtopic: I hate calling it Goliath, really like the old Jewfish name /offtopic

 

[Walter]

So call them Jewfish instead of whining about it.

 

[garyfotodiver]

So call them Jewfish instead of whining about it.

First, I agree that we should let the groupers alone. We only have a short time span during which we have observed the rise and fall of various species populations. Therefore, we really do not know about any natural balancing mechanisms that the marine fauna have.

Second, I find it extremely comical that the name was changed from Jewfish (no Jews whom I know are offended by that name, and I know quite a few Jews) to Goliath Grouper. Goliath was the name of the Philistine warrior who was killed by David and his sling. If I remember, the tale is in Samuel I.

 

[drbill]

Here in California we went from Jewfish to Black Sea Bass to Giant Sea Bass. But the location on Catalina known as Jewfish Point where they used to congregate is still the same.

As I mentioned with our "goliath," we have very little historic information on them to judge what an appropriate (for them or for us?) population size would be. The early commercial fishery beheaded and gutted them, leaving almost nothing of scientific value to study. Currently they are recovering, but fully protected in our waters and to the best of my knowledge aren't taken even for scientific study, only by poachers.

 

[DavidPT40]

I saw a video of a Goliath swallowing an injured Jack whole. I imagine these fish have voracious appetites.

But is it so preposterous to think that Goliath Groupers are decimating local fish populations? Afterall, everyone here says that they haven't been studied very well. Maybe overfishing whiped out the Goliaths main predators too.