- REBREATHERS - SPORT DIVERS ... - Stingray Divers
- REBREATHERS - SPORT DIVERS ... - Stingray Divers
- REBREATHERS - SPORT DIVERS ... - Stingray Divers
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NMFS jewelry.<br />
According to Don, before the<br />
mid 80’s, the number of goliaths<br />
found on these wrecks would have<br />
been at least twice over what is it<br />
is today. Pointing to the back of his<br />
boat, Don described how he and<br />
a one or two man crew could, in<br />
one day, load up the entire cockpit<br />
with their giant carcasses. “Back<br />
then, we would drop in and shoot<br />
a dozen or more on a wreck like<br />
this without putting much of a<br />
dent in the school,” he says. “Or<br />
so we thought.”<br />
“Part of the problem,” Don<br />
explains, “is that these fish are<br />
not the creatures urban legends<br />
have made them out to be. True,<br />
they are intimidating when seen<br />
up close, but in all actuality, they<br />
are surprisingly docile, sometimes<br />
to the point of being a bit dense!<br />
I can’t even begin to tell you how<br />
many times they have just sat<br />
there instead of running, staring<br />
back at you the whole time my<br />
gun was leveled at close range on<br />
their head.”<br />
Having killed a few myself in<br />
my early days, I can attest to<br />
the fact that shooting one with a<br />
powerhead takes about as much<br />
skill as dropping a dairy cow with<br />
a high-powered rifle at point blank<br />
range. Even when a goliath decides<br />
to run, it’s seldom any farther than<br />
the nearest hole or ledge.And once<br />
they hole up, the outcome is often<br />
the same - bam!<br />
On days Don didn’t feel like<br />
going down and pulling the trigger,<br />
“it was just as simple as dropping<br />
a heavy line down with a live blue<br />
runner or jack to the bottom. A few<br />
seconds later, you had fish. It was<br />
insane; we were literally driving<br />
these fish to extinction.”<br />
Close to the Brink<br />
The continued slaughter of<br />
the big goliaths took its toll, and<br />
by the late 70’s, goliath’s had<br />
all but disappeared throughout<br />
most of southeast Florida. By the<br />
mid 1980’s, summer spawning<br />
aggregations, which historically<br />
featured some 80 to 100-plus<br />
breeding age fish on a number of<br />
sites in the central and southern<br />
Gulf of Mexico between Tampa<br />
and Key West, had fallen to less<br />
than ten.<br />
In 1989 the National Marine<br />
Fisheries Service (NMFS), under<br />
the authority of the Magnuson-<br />
Stevens Fisheries Act, listed<br />
goliath grouper populations as<br />
being on the verge of collapse. The<br />
following year, under supervision<br />
of the South Atlantic Fisheries<br />
Management Council, a federal<br />
moratorium was enacted, making<br />
the killing or retention of the<br />
goliath grouper a criminal offense.<br />
In 1991, goliaths were listed as<br />
candidates for the endangered<br />
species list.<br />
www.underwaterjournal.com June/July 2007