Fishing at the aggregation site

[zf2nt]

Please tell me it isn't so! I know there are several people on Grand Cayman who sit in the background on this site, so I hope one of you can come out of the woodwork and put my mind at rest.

A few weeks ago I taught an Enriched Air course to a Ph.D. candidate at a nearby university who turned out to be a specialist in Nassau Grouper. That was very interesting to me, because I have a home on Little Cayman and have followed Project Grouper Moon almost since its inception. It turned out this person was on her way to Little Cayman for the February aggregation, which just happens to be at the same time I'll be down there. We exchanged notes, and she mentioned that her thesis advisor had warned her that there were likely to be local fisherman out at the aggregation site in February while she is out there counting Grouper during the aggregation.

This has the ring of possible truth to me, and it does worry me. I well remember along about 2003 when we on Little Cayman were circulating petitions to the Legislative Assembly to get an 8 year moratorium on fishing at the aggregation sites. We won, and we got our ban! In the years since, I have watched year by year as the Nassau Grouper population on Little Cayman has swelled. Alas, the 8 year period was up last year, and when I was down there last winter I remember talking with some of the marine biologists about how concerned they were that the Legislative Assembly might not renew the ban. That was the last I heard about it. Now this student of mine tells me the ban was not renewed, and this year the locals will be allowed to fish at the aggregation sites. I can still remember the pictures in the Cayman Compass of pick-up trucks filled to the brim with rotting Nassau Grouper after they had glutted the market for Grouper at every supermarket, every resort. Are we going back to that again?

I'll be arriving on Little Cayman next Tuesday, which just happens to be the January full moon. My house is on the beach right off the west end aggregation site, so I'll know the first night I'm there whether this is true or not. And I'll be staying through the February aggregation, out diving (from shore!) every day. Should I try to keep all the Grouper on the north shore from going to a certain death at the aggregation site???

 

[Wookie]

Good luck telling a grouper where to spawn. You'll need the same luck telling fishermen not to fish a spawn, even though the fish meat is soft, even though the meat tastes bad, even though they are killing future generations of fish. They are fishermen, no one said they are smart. In the Dry Tortugas, we got the spawning area for Mutton Snapper, Cubera and Black Grouper declared off limits to any vessel traffic (makes it easier to enforce). Now, 11 years later, we have decent populations of muttons and Blacks. Cubera not so much. The fishermen continue to fish the spawning aggregations off of Key West. There are way fewer fish in Key West than in Dry Tortugas.

 

[Testudo]

Sleep easy when at your LC home:
Cayman Islands News

[h=1]"Groupers live to spawn another day[/h]

Posted on Thu, 12/08/2011 - 19:52 in Science and Nature​

(CNS): The Marine Conservation Board has published a notice on the government’s gazette website announcing the extension of the grouper fishing ban in spawning areas during the spawning season. The ban has been extended for a further eight years giving the endangered fish an opportunity to continue their recovery. The extension will be welcome by the myriad groups that worked alongside the Department of Environment in order to secure an extension to the ban which was due to expire this month. The replenishment of grouper populations is a slow process and the DoE has stated that the continuation of the ban was necessary to ensure that the last viable spawning aggregation (SPAG) site in the Cayman Islands, located in the West End of Little Cayman, did not collapse.
The grouper holes were first closed in 2003 in what was planned to be alternate years of being open for fishing. However, the scientists determined that it was mathematically impossible for the population to replenish itself if large numbers of fish, especially the big spawners, were killed.
The Marine Conservation Board therefore imposed an eight year ban on all grouper spawning sites to give the Nassau grouper a chance to recover, which was due to expire at the end of this year. However, the numbers of spawning groupers have grown only by about 1500 fish. The average size is dropping and they are seeing more of the younger “teenage” fish, though there are still the larger fish, who, scientists have found, are needed to guide the younger fish to the SPAG.
Line fishing of grouper outside the spawning sites is allowed and the Department of Environment has said that 20% of the tagged groupers had been lost outside the area, and they estimate that roughly this proportion of the total population is being fished this way.
Regardless of the wealth of scientific evidence that supports the continued ban, Deputy Premier Juliana O’Connor Connolly, who is 2nd elected member for the Sister Islands, has publicly stated that she is against it and added her signature to a letter drafted by the fishermen of her constituency in March this year addressed to the members of the Legislative Assembly, the Department of Environment and the Marine Conservation Board, saying they “strongly oppose any further extension of the prohibition on fishing in the designated grouper spawning areas” but that they supported a catch limit of 12 groupers per boat per day.
Mark Scotland, who is the minister with responsibility for the environment, has made no public comment about the extension of the ban."

 

[zf2nt]

Testudo--

Thank you so much for passing along the good news. This is a huge relief!

I have had many arguments with Caymanians who, despite all the evidence, still insist that the Grouper come from thousands of miles around to the aggregation site off Little Cayman. They just will not accept that this is an aggregation of a strictly local population, and that once they fish it down below critical mass it will be gone forever--just like has happened everywhere east of the Cayman Islands.

The real heroes of this story are REEF and the CI DOE. They have done a tremendous job of education, but clearly there is much more to be done.

Thanks again for passing along the good news.

Bruce

 

[-hh]

Bruce,

While you are down there on LC, if you do see any fishermen out on the now clearly closed grouper aggregation site(s), I believe that the DOE person you want to contact for taking action is still Robert Walton. If not, he will know who is responsible.



-hh