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I have heard the Goliath Grouper are "stealing our catch" nonsense for years. I haven't seen anybody make that claim and produce a scintilla of documented evidence to back it up. Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
What would you accept as evidence? I just went to YouTube and entered “Goliath grouper steals” and clicked on the suggestion. Several videos popped up showing Goliath groupers stealing catch. Most are from spearos, but that was expected. While I know that some H&L fishermen film while fishing, most probably do not. When a fish is stolen at the surface, it can be tough to document it if you didn’t already have a camera rolling and pointed in the right direction.

Plus, when a GG steals a catch, they don’t often leave evidence. They swallow the fish and run. The angler is left with nothing but a snapped line as “proof.” Snarls and barracudas are also opportunistic feeders, but they bite instead of swallowing whole, so there is a bit more evidence after the fact.

I’m not surprised that there isn’t evidence of every theft, but there is evidence out there.
 
What would you accept as evidence? I just went to YouTube and entered “Goliath grouper steals” and clicked on the suggestion. Several videos popped up showing Goliath groupers stealing catch. Most are from spearos, but that was expected. While I know that some H&L fishermen film while fishing, most probably do not. When a fish is stolen at the surface, it can be tough to document it if you didn’t already have a camera rolling and pointed in the right direction.

Plus, when a GG steals a catch, they don’t often leave evidence. They swallow the fish and run. The angler is left with nothing but a snapped line as “proof.” Snarls and barracudas are also opportunistic feeders, but they bite instead of swallowing whole, so there is a bit more evidence after the fact.

I’m not surprised that there isn’t evidence of every theft, but there is evidence out there.
I guess I don't understand the lingo. When I first read "stealing our catch" I thought that meant the GG got there first and caught and ate the game fish before the fisherman could spear it or hook it. Now, apparently, it means taking the speared fish from the spear, so the GG is taking something that was already taken? So, the fishermen are upset that the GG is poaching on their already-caught fish? Is that it?
 
I guess I don't understand the lingo. When I first read "stealing our catch" I thought that meant the GG got there first and caught and ate the game fish before the fisherman could spear it or hook it. Now, apparently, it means taking the speared fish from the spear, so the GG is taking something that was already taken? So, the fishermen are upset that the GG is poaching on their already-caught fish? Is that it?
Good point. Not sure which was meant initially, I was thinking along the lines of stealing a caught fish. There is definitely evidence of that.

If it meant eating all the other fish, then that would be a lot harder to prove. I don’t think that they move into a spot and eat everything in sight. They are eating something, though.
 
I guess I don't understand the lingo. When I first read "stealing our catch" I thought that meant the GG got there first and caught and ate the game fish before the fisherman could spear it or hook it. Now, apparently, it means taking the speared fish from the spear, so the GG is taking something that was already taken? So, the fishermen are upset that the GG is poaching on their already-caught fish? Is that it?
I think it means both, regardless, its a bogus argument for opening the Goliath Grouper fishery.
 
Good point. Not sure which was meant initially, I was thinking along the lines of stealing a caught fish. There is definitely evidence of that.

If it meant eating all the other fish, then that would be a lot harder to prove. I don’t think that they move into a spot and eat everything in sight. They are eating something, though.
I remember reading somewhere that there had been some studies of what the GG do eat, by examining their stomach contents. I'll see if I can find that.

Not sure that stealing a caught fish ought to focus on the GG; other animals -- notably sharks and morays -- do that too.
 
What would you accept as evidence? I just went to YouTube and entered “Goliath grouper steals” and clicked on the suggestion. Several videos popped up showing Goliath groupers stealing catch. Most are from spearos, but that was expected. While I know that some H&L fishermen film while fishing, most probably do not. When a fish is stolen at the surface, it can be tough to document it if you didn’t already have a camera rolling and pointed in the right direction.

Plus, when a GG steals a catch, they don’t often leave evidence. They swallow the fish and run. The angler is left with nothing but a snapped line as “proof.” Snarls and barracudas are also opportunistic feeders, but they bite instead of swallowing whole, so there is a bit more evidence after the fact.

I’m not surprised that there isn’t evidence of every theft, but there is evidence out there.
I watched some of the videos. In some cases the GG does steal a caught fish, in others they are baiting the goliaths with dead fish just tied to a rope. Nevertheless, fare enough there is some anecdotal evidence. Now all that needs be done is some study that quantifies the stealing. When, where, and how often would be good questions to answer in that regard. Otherwise its just a bunch of uncompiled videos by individuals looking to serve their own interest.
 
I watched some of the videos. In some cases the GG does steal a caught fish, in others they are baiting the goliaths with dead fish just tied to a rope. Nevertheless, fare enough there is some anecdotal evidence. Now all that needs be done is some study that quantifies the stealing. When, where, and how often would be good questions to answer in that regard. Otherwise its just a bunch of uncompiled videos by individuals looking to serve their own interest.
It is likely that we have trained the GG to steal a speared fish....since that is what we did with sharks and morays and lionfish. Unfortunately, for the lionfish training, all we really did was train the predators to follow and hassle the divers because that way they'd get an easy meal. This is documented and published.

So please remind me why we want to punish the GG for a behavior that we taught them? :)
 
You may want to choose a different line of reasoning. It is commonplace ( and given your education I'm sure you understand ) to place bounties, have cull hunts, hire licensed animal control specialists or allow limited recreational or commercial harvesting of animals deemed to be either pests, dangerous or invasive.
Convincing a group of mostly similar thinking divers with little experience in the environment in question is of little value, there needs to be compelling evidence that this limited catch will have dire consequences on the population and none has been presented. Mosty it's been a gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands exercise of appeal to emotion and authority.

Fishing and hunting licenses licenses pay for a great deal of the FWCs budget and there are exponentially more fishermen and spearfisherman combined than there are non consumptive divers and they have far more political clout than they have exerted so far as this is a really minor issue to most of them.
Framing GGs and sharks as harmless or victims of human interaction may work for 8 yr olds watching WWF cartoons but not to career government workers trying to CYA.
 
Though I am not a hunter, I assume that scuba hunters also pay for fish licenses and lobster licenses. How does this fit into the overall equation of income to the state for fishing?
 
It is commonplace ( and given your education I'm sure you understand ) to place bounties, have cull hunts, hire licensed animal control specialists or allow limited recreational or commercial harvesting of animals deemed to be either pests, dangerous or invasive.
Yep, understood completely. The GG are not dangerous, they are not invasive, so I'm questioning whether they are deemed to be pests because we trained them to be pests? My preference would be for FWC to be up front about why they think a limited take is necessary; the argument that the GG are eating all the other fish is unsupportable. If they want to call the GG a pest because they grab a fish that is already speared, well, OK maybe, but it is an argument made by those whose fish were grabbed, no one else.

As for folks who insist on continuing to call them jewfish after the name was officially changed more than 20 years ago, you can only wonder about their motives.
 
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