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What part of the ecosystem is out of balance due to their numbers, their preferred diet?
I can show you. Drop on any wreck on the gulf coast and you'll find bait, small mangrove snapper, barracuda and a bunch of giant jewfish. You won't find red grouper, gags or blacks.

I was diving a new ledge we found last week. Really nice reef and sure enough, there were jewfish present.

For some perspective, their habitat on the Gulf Coast encompasses the shore out to 150 miles. Think about how much territory that is, unlike the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

Capture.JPG
 
Hi @CuzzA

Yes, most of the Goliath Grouper discussion seems to be centered on the Atlantic rather than the Gulf. Perhaps any plan should reflect the differences

Sometimes I wonder what the balance would look like if it were not for commercial and recreational fisherman and hunting divers, just left alone. Before the decline from the 1950s-1980s, there must have been many Goliath Grouper with a much larger range than in the present.
 
@scubadada

I think any tag system for harvest should be regional. Say 10 tags for an area from Pinellas to say Sarasota. 15 for near Naples, etc etc
 
Here's my take. We are the top species on this planet. Humans have been spearing fish since we learned to swim. It is a staple of a healthy diet. We're also smart enough to manage a sustainable fishery. American Red Snapper is a perfect example as this year we have the longest season in decades. Especially after learning the NOAA was off on stock assessments by a magnitude of 3x.

I absolutely think it should not be a statewide tag system, rather a regional approach. Hogfish and grouper regulations are different in the Gulf vs the Atlantic and the same should be for jewfish.

We all want a healthy ecosystem and sustainable fishery. The most recent proposed cobia regulations came from fishermen and spearos, not scuba divers, vegans or environmentalists. We are pushing for a bill right now to manage forage fish.

The sooner we all start working together honestly and not viewing each other as the enemy, the sooner we can focus on what's really important.

Support the Forage Fish Conservation Act - KeepAmericaFishing

BTW, how many people that are for a zero take of anything from the ocean are unwittingly buying products made from the very fish they want to protect. Like lipstick for example.
 
The only living thing that fits this definition is homo sapiens :)
True. Yet here we are the past year setting the standard that no one is allowed to die. :acclaim:

I am also against globalization. Food is the key to any population and if we're hell bent on putting McDonald's on every corner of the globe there's not going to be anything left but chickens, cows, pigs and lettuce and potatoes.
 
If we never delist anything and we never relax any restrictions, we really should be reevaluating whether the listing and restrictions are working.

There are many protected species in FL that are going to have ongoing issues (gopher tortoise, sand skink, scrub jay). Goliath grouper isn't one of them.

I won't even bother to comment here on the makeup of the current FWC board.....
 
Goliath grouper have been out of control for a while, and they need a harvest season.

Hopefully the FWC will pass something this time.

I have been working as a biologist in Florida for more than 20 years, and I serve on the board of environmental professional groups. I don't know any colleagues that don't agree with me.

Funnily enough, every fisheries person I know thinks this is a lousy idea. I also don't know any who use terms like "out of control" for anything besides nuisance invasives like lionfish.

A few key points out of the presentation:

  • "Scientists have attempted to assess the goliath population through traditional stock assessments three times (2004, 2010, and 2016). Each assessment was rejected by independent expert reviewers. The federal fishery management councils’ scientific advisors also rejected the assessments for use in federal management. Some of the reasons why the assessments were rejected include unknowns about life history (e.g., uncertainty about maximum age), the absence long-term datasets (e.g., landings), uncertainty regarding historical landings, and lack of information about the stock outside the southeastern U.S."
  • "Samples from over 850 fish have been analyzed and show low to moderate levels of genetic diversity. These preliminary findings are consistent with a population that was fished down to relatively few individuals and is in the process of recovering. However, more genetic samples from a wider area are needed to further evaluate this issue."
  • "The current age structure of the population is missing fish in the older age classes. Only three goliaths aged after 1990 have been older than 25 years. To achieve the long-term goal of having older fish in the population, survival rates must be high."
  • "Some have concerns about the absence of goliath from its historic range outside Florida, which includes the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and the northern part of South America. The population of goliath off Florida may contribute recruits to the historical range and help seed recovery in other areas."
  • "Recreational anglers who participated in this study had moderately few interactions with goliath and viewed interactions with the fish as positive or neutral. Only 11% of anglers surveyed said they actively target goliath for catch-and-release fishing."
  • "The University of Miami study estimated divers residing in eastern Florida would be willing to pay approximately $103 for a dive trip with one goliath grouper encounter during the months of their spawning aggregation (August – October). This increased to $202 if the dive trip encountered 40 goliath grouper (a number of fish common on many spawning aggregation sites). Study results suggested divers coming from outside of Florida were willing to pay higher rates for dive trips with goliath encounters. At spawning aggregation sites, non-Florida divers’ willingness to pay was estimated around $336 ... For comparison, a previous study estimated Florida resident anglers who wanted goliath to reopen to harvest were willing to pay between $34 and $79 to harvest a goliath grouper."
  • "The federal councils have no plans to consider allowing harvest of goliath in federal waters. It is unlikely the federal councils will revisit the Acceptable Biological Catch (ABC), or the amount of fish the federal councils deem can sustainably be harvested from the population each year, any time soon. Thus, the federal ABC remains at zero and the councils cannot allow harvest in federal waters."
  • "Though an open-access harvest is not advised, a limited harvest is possible while the population continues recovery and would provide a unique recreational fishing opportunity in Florida state waters. If allowed, harvest would be another means of providing access to the fish in line with the agency’s management philosophy for goliath. However, it is unlikely to reduce goliath conflicts with fishers as harvest would need to be very limited. Also, it likely will satisfy very few stakeholders given their highly variable opinions regarding harvest."
  • "While a limited harvest could provide some useful data, it will not gather the data needed for a traditional stock assessment that can pass expert review for use in federal management."
My read between the lines is the same as last time - I definitely felt the FWC staff in the room were giving off "We think this is a dumb idea, but the higher-ups and their whinging fishing buddies told us to make the effort" looks. While they tried to make a case then and now that a limited harvest would provide useful life history data, I pointed out at the Broward County meeting back in 2017 that a slot limit wouldn't look at the upper age limit and most other data (tissue samples, etc.) could be collected nonlethally (researchers will actually routinely catch goliaths, do surgical biopsies of muscle, liver, and gonad tissue, and then sew them up and send them on their way).

The whole "unique harvesting opportunity" pitch also falls flat; as noted only 11% of the anglers surveyed actively target them for catch and release and I haven't exactly heard Hemingwayesque reviews of how thrilling they are to fight (pretty sure I've heard comparisons to dragging around a loaded 55-gallon drum). About the only demographic I see getting a kick out of that is the dumb tourist who wants a 200-lb fish on his wall as a conversation piece, and while Florida does love to cater to those the income flow there is peanuts compared to dive tourism.

The takeaway I get from the second-to-last slide is "this won't make anybody happy." Recreational divers will be outraged, it won't provide much if any additional scientific or fishery management data, it's not going to really do much for recreational anglers, and the commercial fishers and spearos a) won't be able to participate and b) won't see their demands for a significant reduction in the "out of control" goliath grouper population met. All this is going to do is crack open the door for a bigger take later on and encourage some that FWC is "doing something" about the goliath grouper "problem."

I guess that makes sense, first determine IF Staff recommendation is going to be followed, and if so, then hammer out the details of the harvest.

Basically this should be taken as a deja vu of the February 2017 FWC commission meeting where the staff presented the same recommendation; unless someone tries to get cute this time it would go through a similar extended public comment period before a proposed harvest rule is drafted and voted on by the commission.

Hi @CuzzA

Yes, most of the Goliath Grouper discussion seems to be centered on the Atlantic rather than the Gulf. Perhaps any plan should reflect the differences

Sometimes I wonder what the balance would look like if it were not for commercial and recreational fisherman and hunting divers, just left alone. Before the decline from the 1950s-1980s, there must have been many Goliath Grouper with a much larger range than in the present.

As the presentation notes, their historical range extended from the Carolinas down to South America and throughout the Gulf and Caribbean. Outside of Florida they are still uncommon; up in Cape Hatteras I've seen a guy who typically has a knee-jerk "**** the feds" attitude get outraged about catching someone poaching a goliath as they aren't common in NC. Part of the reluctance to consider a reopening is that it's hoped the population in Florida will spill over through the rest of their historic range (one thing the "imbalance" crowd seems to miss is that fish don't stick around when they've exhausted their food supply; goliaths may have small home ranges but as the spawning aggregations show they are capable of long-distance movements). I'm a little perplexed at the comments that FWC is unable to establish historical landings; a friend of mine has interviewed a number of older spearfishers who talk about finding them under the Blue Heron Bridge 70-80 years ago or getting them from shore off Miami.
 
Some have concerns about the absence of goliath from its historic range outside Florida, which includes the Gulf of Mexico
:rofl3::rofl3::rofl3:

Thank you for the laugh. Where abouts in the Gulf of Mexico do the experts think they will find this tropical coastal species?
 
:rofl3::rofl3::rofl3:

Thank you for the laugh. Where abouts in the Gulf of Mexico do the experts think they will find this tropical coastal species?

From NOAA: The goliath grouper is found primarily in shallow tropical waters among coral and artificial reefs. Its range includes the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Keys in the United States, the Bahamas, most of the Caribbean, and most of the Brazilian coast. On some occasions, goliath grouper have been caught off the coast of New England in Massachusetts and Maine. In the eastern Atlantic Ocean, goliath grouper are found off the coast of Africa from the Congo to Senegal.
 
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