Some Say This Goliath Fish, Once Overfished, Is Now a Nuisance | National Geographic

They are fish that can range from a tasty 30-pounder to something the size of a Volkswagen. You'll see spots where this, you know, multiples like 14, 15, 20 Goliath Grouper swimming around. The Goliath Grouper population is getting out of hand. They were historically overfished; fishing pressure really peaked in the 1980s, and there was a very noted and dramatic decline in population numbers, especially in Florida. So there was an emergency closure in 1990.

They have responded quite encouragingly to the protective measures. Laws were enacted to protect the fish, which I think were good laws. And now, 20-30 years later, they definitely are nuisance fish. What they end up doing is, yeah, for fishermen trying to bring a fish up, they often end up fighting the Goliath Grouper who wants the same fish they have. They are opportunistic predators, so they do readily and often steal fish that are hooked and being reeled in by anglers.

A lot of anglers are concerned that Goliath Grouper are eating up all of the grouper and snapper species that we have that are important fishery species. The reality of that is that Goliath Grouper typically eat lower on the trophic level. They do eat a lot of bait fish and crustaceans. They'll eat a lot of crabs; they don't naturally take snappers and groupers on their own.

It comes at the time that we need to start thinking about how do we manage this. Right now, I think a lot of guys would like to see some sort of a lottery system like for alligators or moose or elk, where you buy into a lottery, you're given a tag if your name's chosen, and it allows you to go out and harvest one of these fish.

The stock assessments that have been performed for Goliath Grouper have been inconclusive as far as total recovery of the population goes. The data that we have definitely shows evidence that the population is recovering, but to what level is still relatively inconclusive. So if there's ever going to be any sort of a limited take, it would need to be managed based on scientific evidence and it would have to be monitored very carefully. You have an animal that, once it invades, can really increase in population numbers very rapidly.