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Old 07-11-2017, 11:28 PM   #6
jfjf
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Palm Bch County
Posts: 11,256
Re: Goliath grouper workshops scheduled in Florida from July 31, 2017 to October 18,

Quote:
Originally Posted by CuzzA View Post
I don't think I'd eat them anyway after reading this latest article in DAN's alert diver magazine... Who knew they spent so much time with the pollution.

http://www.alertdiver.com/High_on_Mercury

Of course the author could be pushing an agenda... ya never know what to believe in the media these days. I expect DAN to be straightforward with the facts.
You might want to do some checking. When I looked at this issue a few years ago, the claim that the GG were not safe due Hg was made, but..... the average and median levels of the Hg were a good bit higher in black grouper.

Black grouper is a very important commercial and recreational fish and we don't see similar claims being made.

As best I can tell... the opposition to a harvest has changed over the years to reflect changing realities and politics.

For quite a while, it was argued that the population was too small and all the observations we make of hundreds of individuals is only anecdotal.

As the population continued to grow and everyone see these fish on almost all large structures in Florida... the opposition morphed into an eco-tourism argument. "the fish are more valuable alive than dead" , they will be slaughtered during aggregations and hunting will upset the breeding .....

Of course, I don't think anyone really believes that any harvest will occur during the well documented aggregation period. (so that argument kinda falls away). Plus an initial harvest could be very limited, well regulated and also the source of funds for species specific research - if there was a willingness for this to occur.

So the most recent opposition has been the high mercury content theme, but this information needs to be put into context with other species. Also, since the Hg accumulates over time, one solution might be to limit harvest to smaller individuals.

Trophic studies indicate that GG are NOT apex predators, so the bio-accumulation might not be that different than other fish in the same area.

We have also heard one individual claim something along the lines of "the population can not sustain any legal harvest because the existing illegal harvest - poaching is too prevalent currently". Not sure if that hypothesis has ever been validated and I assume it would be difficult to collect good information on it.
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