Save the Goliath Grouper!

[johndiver999]

So you changed your tune. Before it was "I would support a sustainable harvest"... now it seems to be more honest and implies that opening the fishery (at all) is like opening Pandora's Box. We won't be able to close it or go back and consumptive users will never be satisfied - those are primarily political arguments.

If the fishery is to be opened, then it should be done because a sustainable harvest is possible. Citizens have a right to kill and eat and to harvest wild animals - if the take is sustainable. FWC promotes fishing and hunting! Is turkey hunting allowed because otherwise the woods would quickly be overrun with turkeys? I kinda doubt that.

As previously mentioned, the goliath population 50 years ago may have very little relevance to what can be generated now due to reduced juvenile habitat availability.

FWC and fisherman should NOT have to demonstrate that jewfish are eating "everything" - the bar is actually much, much lower... it should be: Can a sustainable harvest be initiated with careful monitoring? 100 fish is nothing!

Also goliaths DO compete with fisherman for targeted game and food species! To argue otherwise is nonsensical when there is so much overwhelming evidence of it occurring. As mentioned, feeding studies appear to document that grouper and snappers etc. are not important items in their typical diet, but that is irrelevant in this case.

The goliaths are concentrated on wrecks and artificial reefs (as are other fish). The (very common) problem arises when a fisherman hooks or spears a fish and the goliaths have been trained to immediate attack and steal the struggling or compromised fish. They can be so effective, that it prevent fisherman from actually landing a fish. This is EXTREMELY frustrating to fisherman.

The difference in behavior between goliaths that have become habituated to "stealing fish" on popular fishing sites versus their normal behavior on natural reefs in less popular or further offshore sites is dramatic. For example, if you spearfish in areas that are rarely frequented by divers, the jewfish just move off or hide and they might give out a boom or two as they move off. These types of individuals are zero concern to spearfisherman. Contrast that to popular wrecks where goliaths will leave the bottom and actively approach a diver in the water column and if/when the gun is fired, they know exactly what that means and they will often attack instantly.

All these learned behaviors don't make the species bad or worthy of elimination, but they are super frustrating to spearfisherman and hook and line fisherman and they do present a potential hazard - particularly to freedivers who might get tangled in a speargun line after a goliath grabs the fish and runs for a hole in the bottom.

The argument that fisherman are ignorant when they complain about negative interactions because poorly funded scientific feeding studies show game fish predation is unimportant (from a large scale, ecosystem approach) is very shortsighted and equally tone deaf to the political realities of the situation.

Also, the issues you raise about barotrauma caused by fisherman trying to harvest goliaths is a straw man argument. There are many people who target jewfish for fishing now - they apparently do catch and release. If catch and release has some kind of terrible impact, then why has it been going on now for years and years - with no obvious negative consequences?

Would fishing for a 100 fish make a difference?

From my perspective, there is no convincing scientific evidence that taking 100 fish (for one year) is not currently supportable. The real question is more nuanced and primarily political... is it a good idea to open Pandora's Box?

 

[scubadada]

...Citizens have a right to kill and eat and to harvest wild animals - if the take is sustainable...

I must have missed where this right was granted

 

[Jcp2]

It’s philosophic. Do you have a natural right to do anything that is not proscribed by law or do you have rights only if they are specifically named by law.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

It’s philosophic. Do you have a natural right to do anything that is not proscribed by law or do you have rights only if they are specifically named by law.

I see this case as more philosophic in the sense of "do we have a right to kill off animals just because we consider them a pain in the rear?" Because that's pretty much what every argument for reopening goliaths that I see eventually comes out as. There's limited interest in them as a sport or food fish; the interest in harvest is being overwhelmingly driven by the view of them as competition. "Wildlife management" on those grounds never goes well; it's how we've beaten most of our land predator populations into near-oblivion (and then had a whole cascade of issues with species on lower trophic rungs).

My personal favorite fictional Florida boat bum philosopher produced this quote over 50 years ago: “... one day I had decided that the shark was doing his thing, and it was bloody and disrespectful to kill an honest scavenger just because he happened to come into the ball park when you are trying to win.”

 

[yle]

FWC Officials Debate Allowing Limited Harvest of Goliath Grouper

CUZZA
Even FWC refers to the fish as “ Goliath Grouper”. Your terminology is outdated and offensive to many.

He's fully aware of this; pretty obvious it's intentional. Ignoring him is the preferred strategy.

Just unfortunate he doesn't seem to realize that his petty insistence on using the outdated term detracts from the validity of his other arguments on the topic.

 

[yle]

Goliath is anti-semitic. Sworn enemy of the Jewish people.

This statement makes no sense. Goliath was a large person, happened to be a Philistine. He's a character in a biblical story.

His name has become synonymous with "large" or "giant". Thus the name "Goliath Grouper".

Calling the grouper "large" by using the description "Goliath" has nothing to do with anything Semitic or anti-Semitic.

You don't have to pretend, it's okay: we know that you know that using the term "Jewfish" is generally considered offensive (and just because it was generally acceptable in the past doesn't change the fact that it isn't now.) You can drop the charade, trying to justify it, but feel free to keep using whatever term you like. We know you can't help yourself.

 

[yle]

For what it's worth, here are the sharks regulations. I will note they still call our topic fish the Jewfish. I guess the FFWC is anti-Semitic.

It's not that the FFWC is anti-Semitic, but they have an obligation to ensure that they effectively communicate the regulations to everyone. That is, they have to target the lowest common denominator (such as those that refuse to acknowledge "goliath grouper".)

 

[Belzelbub]

I see this case as more philosophic in the sense of "do we have a right to kill off animals just because we consider them a pain in the rear?" Because that's pretty much what every argument for reopening goliaths that I see eventually comes out as. There's limited interest in them as a sport or food fish; the interest in harvest is being overwhelmingly driven by the view of them as competition.

I guess that depends on why they are a pain in the rear. They’ve become more of a pain in the rear as there seem to be more of them around. So the argument may be that they are a pain in the rear, but it at least appears to be as a result of their improved numbers. It doesn’t appear that the FWC is using PITA status as the basis for considering a harvest. They are using the health of the population.

 

[Lostdiver71]

As a Jewish person I do not feel that the name Jewfish was anti-Semitic and no one that I personally know does either but apparently someone did.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

I guess that depends on why they are a pain in the rear. They’ve become more of a pain in the rear as there seem to be more of them around. So the argument may be that they are a pain in the rear, but it at least appears to be as a result of their improved numbers. It doesn’t appear that the FWC is using PITA status as the basis for considering a harvest. They are using the health of the population.

Except that as I noted and as Commissioner Sole noted in his questioning of FWRI staff, FWRI actually hasn't met any of their "alternative metrics" (see slides 10-14: https://myfwc.com/media/26546/7b-presentation-goliathgrouper.pdf) for recovery and I have yet to talk to a fisheries scientist who thinks reopening is a good idea.

If it were not for complaints about depredation or unfounded arguments that they're "imbalancing the ecosystem," this wouldn't be on the agenda - period. The vast majority of public comments in support of a reopening - at the meeting and in this thread - have harped on that argument. There is damned little talk of any commercial or recreational value to a reopening; I would treat the comments of Commissioners Barreto and Spottswood in the FWC press release with a fair bit of caution as they've been pushing this for years (Commissioner Barreto stated in the February meeting that he's been trying to get goliath grouper reopened for 15 years).