Save the Goliath Grouper!

[CuzzA]

while Florida does love to cater to those the income flow there is peanuts compared to dive tourism.

You're kidding right? Scuba diving is peanuts compared to hook and line fishing. For every scuba charter there is likely 100 fishing charters.

In fact scuba diving participation has been declining for years.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

You're kidding right? Scuba diving is peanuts compared to hook and line fishing. For every scuba charter there is likely 100 fishing charters.

In fact scuba diving participation has been declining for years.

Read the presentation (for one thing, you'd learn that anything over 200 pounds is off-limits under the current proposal; so much for your hopes of removing those "800 pound giants"). Goliath grouper fishing isn't a big draw; only 11% of recreational anglers surveyed targeted goliath grouper for catch and release fishing and scuba divers were willing to pay 3-4x the amount to see a goliath as anglers were to harvest one. The proposed tag price is actually over 3x what survey participants were willing to pay to keep a goliath. I don't see a huge demand there for a fish that's expensive to get a tag for, isn't much fun to fight, has to fit a slot limit, and can't be eaten or sold.

Also in there, the whole "they decimate other game fish" argument has been debunked by gut content analyses. If they have eaten all the prey on the sites they occur at, what are they doing still hanging around?

 

[tekkydiver]

Bull sharks are another species that are at unprecedented stocks around Florida. Likely exploding due to warmer water and an abundance of red snapper. The experts will tell you they are rare and absent. A diver will tell you during the summer you can drop anywhere on the middle grounds and you'll quickly be greeted by two to three bullsharks sniffing up your behind.

Anyway, I'm open to counter arguments, but they need to come with facts, not opinions or guesses. And they need to come from people who are out on the water, not behind a desk punching made up numbers into statistical models.

In SE Florida Sandbar Sharks, often misidentified as Bulls, have been out of control. I'm not the only diver or fisherman that has lost countless Tuna, Kings, AJ's, Muttons, etc to Sandbars.

 

[CuzzA]

Read the presentation (for one thing, you'd learn that anything over 200 pounds is off-limits under the current proposal; so much for your hopes of removing those "800 pound giants"). Goliath grouper fishing isn't a big draw; only 11% of recreational anglers surveyed targeted goliath grouper for catch and release fishing and scuba divers were willing to pay 3-4x the amount to see a goliath as anglers were to harvest one. The proposed tag price is actually over 3x what survey participants were willing to pay to keep a goliath. I don't see a huge demand there for a fish that's expensive to get a tag for, isn't much fun to fight, has to fit a slot limit, and can't be eaten or sold.

Also in there, the whole "they decimate other game fish" argument has been debunked by gut content analyses. If they have eaten all the prey on the sites they occur at, what are they doing still hanging around?

So what's the complaint then?

As for gut content. There are so few that have been studied no one can say what their primary diet is. We know it's not lobsters because there are very few lobsters in the Gulf with the exception of the Middle Grounds. So what are they eating to have such prevelant numbers?

Here's the thing many fail to realize. Jewfish will never get back to whatever unknown levels they once were. Their juvenile habitat continues to be destroyed and developed for humans. Most of the artificial wrecks were funded for the purpose of expanding territory for hook and line fishing, not scuba divers. Scuba divers do not fund any conservation or management efforts in any impactful way, and certainly not at a government level. So anglers have funded these wreck and artifical reef projects and then Jewish moved in making fishing nearly impossible and are fighting scuba divers because they're claiming the big mean fishermen want to kill all the jewfish.

So what's the consequence? Well you noted people killing them to free up the wrecks. That will continue until divers start funding artificial reef projects with no take rules. I would support that. The more wrecks and reefs, the better, as evident from the Northern Gulf oil rig reef projects and unintended California rigs.

Frankly, whether 100 fish are harvested or not is going to be negligible in the grand scheme as the next coastal mangrove and estuary habitat is ready to be destroyed so more people can move to Florida.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

So what's the complaint then?

As for gut content. There are so few that have been studied no one can say what their primary diet is. We know it's not lobsters because there are very few lobsters in the Gulf with the exception of the Middle Grounds. So what are they eating to have such prevelant numbers?

Here's the thing many fail to realize. Jewfish will never get back to whatever unknown levels they once were. Their juvenile habitat continues to be destroyed and developed for humans. Most of the artificial wrecks were funded for the purpose of expanding territory for hook and line fishing, not scuba divers. Scuba divers do not fund any conservation or management efforts in any impactful way, and certainly not at a government level. So anglers have funded these wreck and artifical reef projects and then Jewish moved in making fishing nearly impossible and are fighting scuba divers because they're claiming the big mean fishermen want to kill all the jewfish.

So what's the consequence? Well you noted people killing them to free up the wrecks. That will continue until divers start funding artificial reef projects with no take rules. I would support that. The more wrecks and reefs, the better, as evident from the Northern Gulf oil rig reef projects and unintended California rigs.

Frankly, whether 100 fish are harvested or not is going to be negligible in the grand scheme as the next coastal mangrove and estuary habitat is ready to be destroyed so more people can move to Florida.

Gut contents are quite well known because it doesn't require lethal sampling; the fish can be caught and have their stomachs pumped before being released alive. The administrator of Spearboard specifically configured his boat to assist Mote and FSU researchers with this sort of work; the fish here also has fin spines removed for aging and an incision made for tissue biopsies and an acoustic tag.

Vulnerability | Coastal and Marine Laboratory

https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2015/27/n027p155.pdf

Now, if someone shoots a fish in front of a goliath or a group of goliaths and just assumes being a ~200 lb beach ape that's figured out how to take air underwater and make a device that flings pointy barbs makes them an "apex predator" as compared to a 600-pound fish with superior speed and reflexes, the fish is going to prove that assumption wrong. The problem in my view - and from talking to fisheries researchers - is that put bluntly, anglers and spearfishers got used to not having competition over the past 30-40 years. They do daft things like leave full stringers out in the open and wonder why a shark or goliath comes over and takes it, fish places with names like "Bull Shark Barge," or light themselves up like Old Sparky when a small shark gets within 30 ft.

Boiled down, my problem with the proposal is that the justifications are flimsy at best and deceptive at worst. After saying they're going to use an alternative set of benchmarks for species recovery since they can't meet federal guidelines under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, they produce no new information from these relaxed benchmarks to overrule their decision three years ago and justify a limited harvest. It won't provide additional scientific data, it won't have an appreciable economic benefit, and it won't produce marketable meat. The cynical view is that it just proves FWC can be pressured to ignore science and approve a cull; while I don't think 100 fish per year will crash the population I also don't think it will satisfy the complainers. A measurable reduction is what fishing interests want to see, and given that this debate has been going on for at least 15 years now it's a fair guess the intent is to push the population back to where it was in the 1990s.

 

[scubadada]

I wonder what the natural population was before man was injected into the equation, 1950 on? GG must have been pretty common given the fishing and spearfishing photos. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

If there are as many GG in the Gulf as @CuzzA says, the majority of permits can be issued for that area.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

If there are as many GG in the Gulf as @CuzzA says, the majority of permits can be issued for that area.

I hear the same from the spearos over here in SWFL. IF they do this ... YES ... take them here in the Gulf and on the Northern Coast and leave SEFL alone!

 

[CuzzA]

I wonder what the natural population was before man was injected into the equation, 1950 on? GG must have been pretty common given the fishing and spearfishing photos. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

If there are as many GG in the Gulf as @CuzzA says, the majority of permits can be issued for that area.

It's a good question. I hold my position because we find them consistently now on the reefs and ledges versus "artificial" ship wrecks. You usually see them in pairs and I imagine they are fairly territorial. They certainly have adapted to territorial behavior like fairing gills and grunting, so was that learned during their short time of interacting with divers after becoming overfishing? I doubt it. So before man started building steel boats I would assume you would find two or so to a ledge. If you're exclusively a South Florida diver you likely lack perspective for Florida diving as a whole.

 

[CuzzA]

Gut contents are quite well known because it doesn't require lethal sampling; the fish can be caught and have their stomachs pumped before being released alive. The administrator of Spearboard specifically configured his boat to assist Mote and FSU researchers with this sort of work; the fish here also has fin spines removed for aging and an incision made for tissue biopsies and an acoustic tag.

View attachment 658123

Vulnerability | Coastal and Marine Laboratory

https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2015/27/n027p155.pdf

Now, if someone shoots a fish in front of a goliath or a group of goliaths and just assumes being a ~200 lb beach ape that's figured out how to take air underwater and make a device that flings pointy barbs makes them an "apex predator" as compared to a 600-pound fish with superior speed and reflexes, the fish is going to prove that assumption wrong. The problem in my view - and from talking to fisheries researchers - is that put bluntly, anglers and spearfishers got used to not having competition over the past 30-40 years. They do daft things like leave full stringers out in the open and wonder why a shark or goliath comes over and takes it, fish places with names like "Bull Shark Barge," or light themselves up like Old Sparky when a small shark gets within 30 ft.

Boiled down, my problem with the proposal is that the justifications are flimsy at best and deceptive at worst. After saying they're going to use an alternative set of benchmarks for species recovery since they can't meet federal guidelines under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, they produce no new information from these relaxed benchmarks to overrule their decision three years ago and justify a limited harvest. It won't provide additional scientific data, it won't have an appreciable economic benefit, and it won't produce marketable meat. The cynical view is that it just proves FWC can be pressured to ignore science and approve a cull; while I don't think 100 fish per year will crash the population I also don't think it will satisfy the complainers. A measurable reduction is what fishing interests want to see, and given that this debate has been going on for at least 15 years now it's a fair guess the intent is to push the population back to where it was in the 1990s.

Maybe divers should put their money where their mouth is.

The purpose of the Florida FWC is to promote hunting and fishing while enforcing conservation for future generations. I think your expectations and understanding of the department is flawed.

Now, we could start doing what some other countries do and start requiring a an annual diving permit tax. That could go to funding conservation and promote and enforce no takes. I'm pretty damn sure the diving community wouldn't go for that.

So at the end of the day, the FWC is testing the waters. Would I appreciate a solid stock assessment? Sure. But, it's government, they can **** up the simplest of tasks. But they're pretty good at law enforcement, so we'll see what happens. Doesn't make much difference to me. I gave up many years ago fishing the wrecks I helped to fund.

 

[scubadada]

I would be in favor of a scuba hunting tax, that would only be fair and support ongoing evaluation