[Coral-List] Proposed Killing of Goliath Grouper (Eugene Shinn) (Ault, Jerald Stephen) (Sarah Frias-Torres)

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Thu Sep 30 05:10:36 UTC 2021


Check out Minimata Disease, the extreme form of methyl mercury poisoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease  "In extreme cases, insanity
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity>, paralysis
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralysis>, coma
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma>, and death
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death> follow within weeks of the onset of
symptoms."  1784 dead in Japan 10,000 have received compensation, where
they know it all too well.  This is NOT something to mess with.

By the way, the tuna industry will never say it, but adults should restrict
their intake of tuna to one can a week, less for youngsters.  Hopefully
levels are lower in these big groupers than in the Japanese victims, but
why take a chance???  The mercury in tuna comes from burning coal, it is in
the smoke, rain takes it out and drops it on the land, into rivers and
directly into the ocean, and a US EPA regulation to require removal of it
from coal plant emissions was to have saved an estimated 20,000 lives each
year in the US alone (maybe most from inhaling it, I don't know.).
      Cheers, Doug

On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 6:23 PM Sarah Frias-Torres via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Elizabeth
> the Goliath Grouper, Epinephelus itajara, remains endangered.
> Commercial extinction in Florida was reached in the late 1980s.
> This was the reason for the 1990 federal and state moratorium on harvest.
> Elsewhere in the tropical western Atlantic, the species is functionally
> extinct.
> So, Florida is now the only place in the world where you can find
> juveniles and adults of Goliath Grouper
>
> Recovery of the population, to the point before the extinction event, is
> impossible.
> The main reason is that the primary juvenile nursery habitat in Florida is
> mostly gone.
> We only have the fringing red mangroves of Ten Thousand Islands and the
> Florida Bay side of the  Florida Keys.
> The collapse of the Indian River Lagoon means that any good quality
> nursery habitat is gone there.
> Then, we have spawning aggregation extinctions as well.
> The few spawning aggregations left, either re-formed around historic sites
> or formed anew.
> At most, we find 50 Goliaths in one spawning aggregation site, when
> historical records, report hundreds to thousands of them per site.
>
> To note, even during the existing moratorium, there is a kill fishery
> .- targeted catch and release, with unknown mortality. We know adults are
> highly vulnerable to catch stress and barotrauma. In Warsaw Grouper, the
> catch and release mortality of adults can be as high as 70 %, and it might
> be the same case for Goliaths. At spawning aggregation sites, we see
> Goliaths with eyes gouged out and other signs of catch and barotrauma. We
> don't know the long-term consequences of such damage. This is allowed by
> FWC without a proper scientific evaluation and in violation of the
> moratorium
> .- poaching: There's poaching with hook and line and with spearfishing; in
> dives, we regularly see Goliaths with spearfishing wounds, these are the
> ones that survived, or are in the process of dying from the wounds. We are
> talking about spears going through their belly, and seeing the fish dying
> in agony for days. Think about the type of "fishermen" who are happy with
> such outcome. This is all reported to FWC, and no action comes along
>
> In addition, we have chronic mass mortality events, due to cold fronts and
> red tides. For example, in 2005 a mass mortality event linked to red tides
> killed at least 200 Goliath adults, and a 2010 cold front caused mass
> mortality of up to 90 % of the juvenile population in the mangroves. That's
> 8-year classes killed in one event.
> For a long-lived species (perhaps up to 80 years) with late maturity (min.
> 8 years), such a level of loss takes years to recover from. Then, the next
> mass mortality event comes along.
>
> To your statement based on the FWC site: "The justification of this being
> that the population has reached a level where removing a maximum of 200
> individuals with a minimum length of 20" and a maximum length of 36" from
> the population would not adversely affect the continued rebuilding of the
> population"
>
> That's incorrect. We have shown the data to FWC commissioners, we have
> shared science with them for years, explaining how vulnerable this species
> is to any level of fishing. How, when we seem to have some "surplus" fish,
> we are going to see them killed at the next mass mortality event. FWC
> chooses to deny the science and instead bend to the recreational fishing
> lobby.
>
> On the cultural angle. The issue here is that some fishermen in Florida
> only feel powerful when they kill a big fish. This is it. Here's the catch
> (pun intended). Goliaths have high levels of methyl mercury. They
> accumulate it fast during their juvenile phase in the mangroves. This is
> linked to the way mercury becomes methyl mercury in the mangrove mud
> (bacterial loop), and juvenile Goliaths eat things in the mud (worms,
> crabs, etc), and they constantly ingest methyl mercury. We know methyl
> mercury causes major nerve disruption and overall damage to our health,
> including erectile dysfunction. So, if you eat this fish, you won't get it
> up.
>
> References
> Atlantic Goliath Grouper of Florida: To Fish or Not to Fish
> https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fsh.10349
>
>
> Environmental Mercury and Its Toxic Effects
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988285/
>
>
>
> <><...<><...<><...
>
> Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D.
> Twitter: @GrouperDoc
> Science Blog: https://grouperluna.com/
> Art Blog: https://oceanbestiary.com/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
> Elizabeth Janz via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2021 2:02 PM
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Proposed Killing of Goliath Grouper (Eugene
> Shinn) (Ault, Jerald Stephen) (Sarah Frias-Torres)
>
>    Looking at the FWC Memorandum, they are proposing reopening the Goliath
>    Grouper fishery that was shut in 1990. The justification of this being
>    that the population has reached a level where removing a maximum of 200
>    individuals with a minimum length of 20" and a maximum length of 36"
>    from the population would not adversely affect the continued rebuilding
>    of the population.  While they are removing potential future breeding
>    stock (I assume that 36" is a juvenile length), they are not allowing
>    the removal of the large fecund females that can replenish those
>    taken.  Additionally, the use of hook and line as the only allowable
>    gear ensures limiting bycatch.
>
>
>    Jerry brings up an interesting point that perhaps catching and selling
>    goliath grouper at a fish market would not be as profitable as seeing a
>    live one in the wild which is a similar argument made for reducing
>    takes of marine mammals in the United States. However there are
>    cultures around the world that do eat marine mammals and use their
>    parts for supplements, oil, and crafts.  Perhaps there is a market for
>    these fishes as well.
>
>
>    Elizabeth Janz
>
>    Master's Candidate | December 2021
>
>    Fisheries Management & Conservation
>
>    University of Miami, RSMAS
>
>
>    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
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