A few Key Ways to
Care For The Oceans
Caring for our Ocean
Grouper Conservation
Groupers are one of the many marine animals that are rapidly disappearing from oceans due to the high demand for them as human food by both commercial and recreational anglers. Their biology and modern electronics make them very vulnerable easy location and capture, potentially reducing their numbers to below those needed for successful egg fertilization with broadcast spawning. To “conserve” Grouper or other species is to use some now, but save some for later, without over use.
Conservation of groupers can start as a concept, an ideal or goal for which to strive or as an active process. As an active program, it could be directed at avoiding unnecessary use of or large scale harm to grouper populations with a goal of improvement in their health and utility (not necessarily abundance). Conservation would include rational levels of harvest, while potentially improving the long term status of populations. Similar to stewardship, active conservation can include restoration, preservation and management of grouper populations. It might be suggested that grouper conservation consists of shared use of grouper populations among all users (harvest and non-harvest) without reducing over-all numbers or age-structure thus conserving for future availability and use. In simple terms, everyone gets to use some, but no one group gets to use them up. In some cases, conservation implies improvement of the present condition to a better state more closely resembling the past conditions. Considering the past and present removal of large parts of grouper populations, restorative conservation may not be practical/reasonable for groupers.
Respected sports fishermen are conservationists believing in and practicing ocean stewardship. Conservation can be both a theory and a practice which may be defined as use of a resource, such as fishes, in such a way that the resource is not damaged or diminished from that use (it is “conserved”). The true conservationist contributes to the continuation of fish populations for future generations of anglers with sustained catches of grouper and other species by limiting their present day harvests.
Caring for our Ocean
Grouper Stewardship
Stewardship might be defined as the action of taking care of something of value, as the stewardship of grouper, and might include: human activities that could improve their long-term survival and spawning. Stewardship is often considered the responsibility for care of a natural (“wild”) resource, even physically as shepherds take care of a flocks of geese or sheep; for Groupers (and other reef fishes) stewardship might include: habitat improvements, as artificial reefs and protection from human predation within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); growth and/or breeding protection by temporary catch limitation in specific seasons or places. Care for fish and their populations, such as Groupers, is often through management of the fishermen by government Fishery Councils or state Fishery Commissions.
To initiate a stewardship program, often a form of public education may be required to identify the need for and the potential direction of specific stewardship activities. Establishing fishing policies/ laws designed to allow population stability or regulate harvest activities to promote sustainable harvests into the future (via Fishery Management Councils) requires actions which respond to changing harvest conditions. Examples might include: increasing the amount of regional protected spawning habitats, and enforcement of fishing regulations on MPAs by US Coast Guard or Green Peace organizations. Fishers who harvest groupers for market can contribute to grouper stewardship by following management regulations and laws.
An example of stewardship to protect some populations of Grouper might include placing artificial reef structures on the bottom within a Marine Protected Area to cause deflection and local upwelling of oceanic currents, which would stimulate increased growth of plankton populations and associated plankton feeding forage fish populations. This increased source of food for grouper and other large predators (as species of billfish), will assist in their growth and survival, which should promote spawning of the Grouper, as well as other reef and pelagic fishes near that location.
Both conservation and stewardship are long-term commitments requiring sociatal support through generations to ensure that healthy grouper populations exist into the future. It will not be an easy task with human populations and their need for food expanding at a great rate. There is a need for public understanding the support of positive action.
Caring for our Ocean
Who owns that grouper?
Free ranging “wild” animals, like grouper, that are not privately owned by shepherding or fencing, are commonly considered as belonging to any one that can catch them first. Any profit motivation often associated with catching “free” (not privately owned) fish often greatly reduces the more rational priorities of conservation and stewardship. Therefore, government agencies often have to regulate some harvest of “common property” fish so that their populations are not fished to extinction.
Grouper in the ocean can be worth a lot of money for both the food market and as a recreational species, but who owns them? Many fishers believe that whoever can find and catch the grouper and has invested in the high costs of fishing in the ocean, should make all the profit. So, do they own all the grouper? You, me, everybody that is a citizen of this country owns them. What if I wanted “my grouper” to roam free and not be caught and eaten? This might be like elk, big horn sheep and bison in some Western National Parks. Animals allowed to be relatively free to live and reproduce for the enjoyment of present and future generations. Underwater parks, where fish are protected from fishing, presently exist as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but they are not well protected from fishing poachers. And remember that it might take 20-40 years of survival and growth to replace one large adult grouper. A painfully slow process.
