Goliath Grouper | JONATHAN BIRD'S BLUE WORLD

The Goliath Grouper is one of the largest bony fish in the world, and this made it the target of intense fishing efforts for many years. After nearly becoming extinct, the fish was afforded legal protection enacted in 1990. Twenty years later, the protection is finally starting to pay off. Jonathan joins famous National Geographic photographer David Doubilet as he visits a shipwreck in Florida where Goliath Groupers gather to spawn every year, and meets dozens of these massive animals!
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Goliath Groupers! They’re among the largest reef fish in the world. They used to be common throughout the Caribbean, but then their numbers started to plummet in the 1980s.

That's because everybody wants to catch an 800-pound fish, so pretty soon the Goliath Grouper had been fished almost to extinction. In 1990, the U.S. Government had to take drastic measures to protect this fish, so they passed a law that banned all fishing of Goliath Groupers. Now, nineteen years later, they're making a remarkable comeback.

The Goliath Grouper is still very rare. In fact, most divers have never even seen one.

David Doubilet, the world-famous National Geographic Magazine photographer, has invited me to join him and his wife Jen Hayes (who is also his photo assistant) on a Goliath Grouper filming expedition.

We board the Shearwater, a large dive boat that will be our base of operations for a week.

We've arrived at the wreck of the Mizpah, which sits on the sea floor 80 feet below. The question is: are there any Goliath Groupers down there?

Once we hit the bottom, Pierre and I will stay out of David and Jen’s way.

Shipwrecks are magnets for fish. That's because they provide a great place for fish to hide and rest on what might otherwise be a very flat, featureless sea floor.

The shipwrecks off the east coast of Florida have become some of the best places to find Goliath Groupers. But a typical shipwreck only has one or two of them hanging around.

Things are different here in September. That's when the Goliath Groupers get together in large numbers to spawn.

The groupers don’t like the current much either, so they hide behind the wreck the same way one might hide behind a large object to get out of the wind.

But outside, they let me get really close. These Groupers are surrounded by little silvery fish called cigar minnows.

The minnows might look like they are hiding out of the current, but they are really aggregating close to the groupers.

Later, when the current relaxes, dozens of groupers are gathering together in the water column above the wreck. What’s going on? It’s the mating season, and these fish are preparing to spawn—probably at dusk or after sunset.

Unfortunately, I’m low on air and I need to head back to the surface. Pierre and I do a safety stop on the anchor line as we eagerly anticipate the next dive.

I keep looking for any kind of mating activity, but something totally unexpected catches my eye!

It's a manta ray swimming among the groupers!

I move in for a shot of the ray. It doesn’t seem afraid of me.

And I have to believe it's no coincidence that a manta has shown up here. Mantas are filter feeders and this one is probably hoping to join the cigar minnows and feed on some grouper eggs too.

The manta seems intrigued by our video lights and she keeps coming over to me. So I put my camera down and give her a little belly rub.

Mantas are awesome but I need to keep my attention and my camera focused on the big groupers so I don’t miss anything.
The cigar minnows are crowding in even tighter to the Groupers. You can hardly even tell there’s a big fish in the middle of all that!

It's an amazing spectacle to observe. These enormous fish would make Michael Jordan feel small. And the cigar minnows are just magical to watch.

We see a lot of what looks like courting, but no spawning. Maybe the groupers are more bothered by our presence than they let on. Or maybe they are waiting until dark.

But as it gets later and later, we are running out of light, and air. Reluctantly, Pierre and I must head back to the surface.

It looks like the spawning will happen later in the evening and I will miss it.

Видео Goliath Grouper | JONATHAN BIRD'S BLUE WORLD канала BlueWorldTV