Goliath Grouper Harvest Is Discussed

September 24, 2009

Release from: Susan Cocking
Miami Herald

About 90 feet deep on an artificial reef called the Zion off Jupiter, a group of scuba divers confronted a stunning sight: as many as 70 goliath groupers -- some nearly as large as Mini Coopers -- hovering amid a cloud of shimmering sardines.

The huge, brown mottled fish made no attempt to consume the minnows around them. They milled placidly around the shipwreck until the divers came close. Then a couple of the fish made a deep booming sound like muffled bass drums and hid beneath the broken-up hull. The underwater photographers in the group -- each of whom had paid about $100 for the trip -- were frustrated because none of the subjects would stay in the frame with a diver long enough to lend perspective on its size.

Four days later, at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting in central Florida, commissioners were talking about reopening the fishery for goliath grouper -- closed for the past 19 years -- to a limited, recreational take.

FWC chairman Rodney Barreto told his colleagues he is under intense pressure from members of the public.

``Can we do a tag, a permit system?'' Barreto asked Mark Robson, the agency's saltwater fisheries administrator. ``I'm getting hammered everywhere I go. You've got to do something.''

Added commissioner Ron Bergeron: ``There's an awful lot of them out there. It's a resource we should look at for the benefit of the fishermen.''

Robson said the state is trying to coordinate with officials from NOAA Fisheries and representatives of the Gulf and South Atlantic fishery management councils to do a ``harvest sampling'' -- killing a limited number of fish -- to gather data for a stock assessment by 2013.

Barreto was dismayed.

``I thought we were in the field doing sampling. Here we are three years later not doing any sampling,'' he said. ``Let's turn the volume up. We keep raising the issue and nothing moves.''

Goliath grouper, formerly known as jewfish, is a polarizing species in Florida.

Once a staple of the commercial fishing and diving industries, the giant reef fish were nearly wiped out by spearfishers and hook-and-liners in the late 1980s. In 1990, the federal government put goliath grouper on the prohibited list, and in recent years, populations on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida have bounced back.

Goliaths have recovered so well that they are being blamed for everything from wiping out lobsters on the reef to preying on plunging populations of grouper and snapper. Recreational and commercial anglers and commercial divers on both coasts are clamoring for their heads.

``People either love them and are fascinated by them, or they hate them,'' said captain Randy Jordan, owner of Jupiter-based Emerald Charters.

Jordan is on the ``love'' side. Each summer and fall, he escorts numerous divers to sites like the Zion and the adjacent wrecks of the Miss Jenny and Bonaire, and to a natural reef known as ``Hole in the Wall'' to observe spawning aggregations of goliaths. Jordan has posted a video on his website, emeraldcharters.com, in which he wrestles with a large goliath to successfully remove an illegal spear from its mouth.

``People come from all over the country to see the aggregation. It's a tremendous source of tourism dollars,'' he said.

Chris Koenig of the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory in St. Teresa Beach has been studying goliath grouper for more than a decade and recently prepared a report to NOAA Fisheries containing four years of data. Koenig's findings dispute nearly every gobbling-goliath assertion made by fishermen in public meetings and online forums.

Perhaps the most important is that neither adults nor juveniles need to be killed in order to determine age structure, population size, home range, diet, reproduction and the species' role in the state's marine ecosystem.

Koenig and his colleagues found they could use dorsal fin rays and spines to age the fish instead of the traditional method of harvesting the otoliths, or ear bones, of dead fish. The scientists used lasers underwater to estimate individual size and determine regional size distribution.

They tagged juveniles in their near-shore mangrove habitat on the state's southwest coast and caught up with them years later, when they migrated offshore to join mature fish. They captured fish and pumped their stomachs to find out what they ate, then let them go. And they recently collected goliath eggs at aggregation sites, such as the Zion and Hole in the Wall, verifying that spawning occurs on dark nights from late July through early October.

``We've worked really hard to do nondestructive sampling,'' Koenig said.

A finding that will surprise some anglers and divers, Koenig said, is that goliaths hardly ever prey on grouper, snapper or lobsters. After sampling the stomach contents of 250 fish, the researchers found they ate mostly crabs and shrimp.

``We got one lobster,'' he said.

As for fish, Koenig said, the giant groupers ate mostly catfish, angelfish, filefish, burrfish, parrotfish, stingrays, spadefish, cowfish and porcupinefish.

``There's no evidence they eat groupers and snappers under ecological conditions,'' Koenig said. ``They take them off the end of a line or a spear because they're a predator. The fish is in distress.''

He said goliaths favor slow-moving fish, which might include the exotic lionfish -- a spiny invader from the Pacific that has made its way into South Florida and Caribbean waters to prey on smaller, native reef fish. Although no goliath-on-lionfish predation has been documented, Koenig said the potential is there. ``I'm sure once they recognize [lionfish] as food, they'll eat it,'' he said.

Koenig is adamant that the timing is way too early for federal or state governments to consider reopening the harvest of goliaths. He said there's a federal mandate to achieve a 50 percent spawning potential ratio before the closure could be lifted -- a scientific measure of stock health -- and so far, there's no research to document that benchmark has been achieved.

``I hate to see the state and federal governments bow to a few loud people who are just making things up,'' Koenig said.

Koenig said Floridians need to stop treating the goliath grouper like an exotic nuisance taking over the reef. It has been around for millions of years and plays a role in keeping the marine ecosystem in balance, he said.