Original Article: https://blog.theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/goliath-grouper/
Goliath groupers make their homes in and around Florida’s coral reefs where they can grow to 800 pounds. According to NOAA Fisheries, these massive fish have few natural predators, and swim through the shallow waters without hesitation, which has historically made them easy prey for fishermen and divers with spearguns.
Divers once harvested these fish using powerheads on spearguns, boaters pulled them in with winches on mounted on gunwales, TCPalm reports. Meanwhile, fish houses paid about 40 cents per pound for the goliath grouper, just $120 for a 300-pound fish.
The goliath grouper was nearly driven to extinction until the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission in 1990 banned the killing and possession of goliath groupers, according to the Associated Press. Federal fisheries agencies also imposed bans, giving the fish protections in both state and federal waters.
As Mission Blue reports, Goliath grouper spawning aggregations are forming again off the east coast of Florida. It’s the only place in the world where these fish can thrive in significant numbers, as juveniles in mangroves, and as adults in reefs, solitary or forming spawning aggregations. In late summer, the goliath groupers attract loads of tourists who in turn boost local economies.
Commercial interests have since complained the groupers are overeating and responsible for declining fish and lobster stocks, when overfishing has mush more to do with dwindling seafood catches. Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has picked a side on this issue despite a lack of scientific evidence, and is now allowing the first catch of goliath groupers in more than three decades.
Felicia Coleman, a marine biologist and former director of Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory, along with her husband, marine biologist Chris Koenig, told NPR they oppose any move to reopen goliath groupers to fishing.
“When you’re looking at population recovery,” Coleman said, “the important thing is what is the size of the reproductive population, that is the adults. And if those aren’t increasing, which they are not, then you’re not recovered.”
They’re joined by other scientists, environmental organizations and dive groups who say the species should continue to be protected.
The Florida FWC has suggested charging $300 per fish killed, while recreational divers pay around $100 for one goliath grouper sighting, Mission Blue reports. That means a single goliath grouper can generate as much as $36,500 per year or more than a million dollars over its lifetime for the local economy. Likewise, one spawning aggregation of several goliath groupers could generate as much as $500,000 a year for one dive business. Leaving the goliath groupers alive is a seemingly much more lucrative alternative to $300 and a dead fish.
“Although the species has not recovered to pre-exploitation levels, enough goliath groupers are showing up at a few spawning aggregation sites that their presence, and the SCUBA divers that come to visit them, bring a much-needed lifesaver to small businesses in Florida, between late August and early October, just when transition between the summer and winter seasons will leave these businesses in the doldrums,” said Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. “A live goliath grouper is more valuable than a dead one. And living goliaths will keep forming spawning aggregations and contributing to the Florida economy for as long as they live.”
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Source: The Animal Rescue Site Blog
