Have you met "Ben" the grouper?

[hynan]

I am curious about the history of friendly groupers at the Marilyn's Cut (and adjacent) dive sites at Little Cayman. I first dove there in Jan., 2002 and heard about "Ben" and his shyer friend, "Jerry". Unfortunately, due to weather we only got to Jackson/Bloody Bay on one trip that year, and I saw no friendly groupers. From 2002-2005, I dove each Jan with Paradise Divers (PD). In Jan,03 we were told that Ben had not returned from the Jan. spawning; but that "Jerry" had taken his place. I did meet Jerry, played with him, and noticed a smaller companion grouper. Jerry seemed to demand recognition from all divers that year. The smaller grouper hung around, but did not play. The PD dive masters called him "Tom". This experience was repeated in 04 and 05 in Jan. In 06, we started to dive with Conch Club divers, who referred to the friendly grouper as "Ben". We saw "Ben" in 06, but there was no smaller companion grouper that year. In 07, we saw "Ben" again, accompanied now by a very small companion grouper.

So I suspect that there may have been a few "Bens". I am curious if anyone knows if different groupers have played the part of Ben; about possible modeling by the younger grouper; and if anyone has observed this at other locations.

Mike

 

[Damselfish]

I was there in 05 and no one was calling the larger grouper Ben. They said it was Jerry. And I believe they were calling Jerry's companion Mini-Me.

 

[tvictory]

I was there in December '06 and there were several large, tame Nassau Groupers that consistently showed up on the sites around Bloody Bay wall. I don't know their names but they seemed to be regulars.

Incidentally, it's a rare dive anywhere off Little Cayman when you don't see groupers. They aren't all tame but they aren't skittish either. There is a protected area off the west end of the island where the spawning aggregations occur.

 

[sdwho]

I was at LC in 03 and again in 05. We heard that Ben hadn't returned from spawning in 03. Apparently, poachers went after the spawning grouper that year == we only saw a few grouper that fall. One of them was referred to as "Benjy". In 2005, we saw Benjy again, this time accompanied by "mini-me". Whether "Benjy" in 03 was the same grouper as "Benjy" in 2005 is anyone's guess. The locals claim it is.

 

[Dive1Dennis]

When I was diving in Little Cayman a couple weeks ago I attended a presentation about the Grouper Moon project. This was a very interesting presentation about the work that they are doing to study and protect groupers in the Caymans. One of their efforts was to provide protection for the groupers during the spawning aggregation that occurs there in the winter. This spawning aggregation was discovered in 2002 when a huge number of groupers were taken by fishermen. We were told that Ben, apparently the original Ben, never came back from the spawning aggregation that year.
I dove Mixing Bowl and Marilyn's cut and did not notice any other than the typical groupers. Then again this was my first trip to Little Cayman so I might not have know Ben even if I did see him I don’t recall any reports from our boat of overly friendly groupers either.

 

[merxlin]

I am curious about the history of friendly groupers at the Marilyn's Cut (and adjacent) dive sites at Little Cayman. I first dove there in Jan., 2002 and heard about "Ben" and his shyer friend, "Jerry". Unfortunately, due to weather we only got to Jackson/Bloody Bay on one trip that year, and I saw no friendly groupers. From 2002-2005, I dove each Jan with Paradise Divers (PD). In Jan,03 we were told that Ben had not returned from the Jan. spawning; but that "Jerry" had taken his place. I did meet Jerry, played with him, and noticed a smaller companion grouper. Jerry seemed to demand recognition from all divers that year. The smaller grouper hung around, but did not play. The PD dive masters called him "Tom". This experience was repeated in 04 and 05 in Jan. In 06, we started to dive with Conch Club divers, who referred to the friendly grouper as "Ben". We saw "Ben" in 06, but there was no smaller companion grouper that year. In 07, we saw "Ben" again, accompanied now by a very small companion grouper.

So I suspect that there may have been a few "Bens". I am curious if anyone knows if different groupers have played the part of Ben; about possible modeling by the younger grouper; and if anyone has observed this at other locations.

Mike

We were there last August and were introduced to Benji and Mini-me. Couldn't tell you if it was the same grouper, but this one was a real ham. If you went inverted and looked under a rock, he'd come right up next to you and look for whatever it was that caught your attention. If you happened to find a squirrel fish, all you had to do was point and he'd come over for a quick meal. Our DM's had a whole schtich worked out with them.

 

[-hh]

I am curious about the history of friendly groupers at the Marilyn's Cut (and adjacent) dive sites at Little Cayman. I first dove there in Jan., 2002 and heard about "Ben" ... In Jan,03 we were told that Ben had not returned from the Jan. spawning; but that "Jerry" had taken his place. I did meet Jerry, played with him, and noticed a smaller companion grouper... So I suspect that there may have been a few "Bens".

Yes, there have been mutiple individuals playing the part over the years. Sometimes, they get new names (Jerry, Freddie, etc), sometimes not.

FWIW, here's a close-up of the 1990 "Ben":

I am curious if anyone knows if different groupers have played the part of Ben; about possible modeling by the younger grouper; and if anyone has observed this at other locations.

The genesis of 'friendly' groupers at Marilyn's Cut dates from the 1980s and these early days of UW photography, when feeding was still quite common.

The "original" Ben in the photo above was quite aggressive... he came in behind me and swam between my legs to get into my face, so his introduction was to brush up against my inner thigh (woog!). The basic rule of thumb in those days was that divers had food, especially photographers.

FWIW, I would not be too surprised if many of those famous photos of "Buttercup" (a Coney in Golden Phase) at Mixing Bowl could have also been the result of behavior modifiation through some amount of feeding. However, that was a different age than today - - harassing pufferfish to cause them to inflate for a photo was also very common and so forth.

Over the past nearly 20 years, I've seen the "Bens" come and go. Ditto the "Jerry's".

Generally, I can tell more by how they behaive in general for what's been going on: as direct fish feeding became a no-no, what has evolved is that "squirrelfish" trick that was mentioned in this thread. As per my local sources, much of this was attributable to a DM that worked on the Cayman Aggressor, but the trick got picked up at times by other humans...and the Groupers have learned to accept the free lunch.

As such, this "no food" feeding technique has been keeping the Groupers interested in the Divers here at this spot for roughly the past ten years or so.

A couple of years ago now (maybe 6+?), it got really bad and Marilyn's Cut had around eight (8) "Bens" all just hanging out waiting for divers. As soon as you would get near, they would move over to hover over a small coralhead, head pointed down at a 75 degree angle. It was an IMO downright disgusting display of animal behavior modification by humans.


Finally, insofar as the Grouper Holes, I'm glad that they're now protected, but the reality is that they've been known to exist for years, as I have an old 1980's vintage dive map (somewhere) that has their location listed on it. Of course, back then the fishing was more for sustanance, not money, so there was no incentive to even try to fish them out. FWIW, I'm aware of the uber-deep "bommies" in the Bogue between Little Cayman and the Brac that have a deepwater grouper that is sometimes fished. These are around 500fsw deep and weren't the breeding "holes" that were referred to avove.



-hh

 

[hynan]

I was taught how to play with "Ben" by pointing at squirrelfish, but unlike a couple posters on this thread, I have never seen the game reinforced by lunch. The squirrelfish always seemed to easily find refuge in a coralhead quickly, even though "Ben" would move quite quickly when into the chase. Then Ben would hang around for a few seconds and move along, seemingly more interested in divers than a meal, at least within the moment.
I may have to modify my grouper play.

Mike

 

[sdwho]

Same here. In our two trips to LC, we've had Ben accompany us on several dives, doiong his "pointing" thing, but he's never actually chowed down on anything while we were with him.

In contrast, on our trip to the Galapagos, we did a night dive where we accompanied by a sea lion that had a feast every time we used our lights to look in some crevice.

 

[AggieDiver]

We were introduced to "charlie" at Marilyn's Cut in 1995. I am sure there are numerous different groupers that have played the part of the friendly grouper over the years.