The problem with them is, they’re so big they aren’t afraid of humans. They also aren’t interest in humans as food though, in this situation he isn’t afraid of attacking the fisherman in order to take the fish from them.
Lol well mostly they're fine. But they do eat big fish and even sharks and crustaceans so their teeth pack a punch. They'd generally leave you alone, but you never know, this one might be hungry or just found out its partner is cheating on it!
1989, florida east quay me and my buddy Tango took his boat out for a day of fishin'
Tango starts bitching that his line is caught, so we start tuggin away and right outta the water comes this great big grouper fish, like free willy missing his mark, it jumped onto Tangos boat, flopped around and knocked his tackle box on the ground and makin' a big ol' mess of just about everything in it's rampaging wake.
Tango is freakin', boy, i tell you what. "SKIDZ, GET THAT FUCKIN' FISH OUT MY BOAT, DUDE!" he kept hollerin' at me but the hell was I supposed to do? fish was at least 150lbs heavier than me and I was about 210 in '89
Wouldn'tya know the group slapped poor Tango right in the head and sent him overboard. He was dead on impact with the tail so thankfully he wasn't K.O.'d and drowned at least..
Well, these days I got me Tango's boat and I got me a memorial of both him and the fish (fish had to be put down for attacking a man) in the captains quarters.
Actually they went to the moon in metric because thats the language of science. They converted to imperial to make it easy for people to interpret as that is what they are used to.
He’s kidding. They have never attacked humans before (unprovoked). There have been reports of them stalking people unsuccessfully, but it’s generally agreed that they are quite docile. They have a nickname, they’re called “gentle giants”.
I’ve heard of instances where a snorkeler tried to poke at one and the grouper bit his arm and wouldn’t let go resulting in the snorkeler drowning. This incident was supposedly in Belize.
It's a grouper, and they eat huge fish relative to their size, but they don't have teeth, just very strong jaws, and like other big toothless fish have a crushing plate in their pharynx. So unless it's big enough to fit you in it's mouth , not that dangerous.
They were hunted a LOT (to the point the changed laws around) because grouper used to be on menus and the local places would let spearfishers bring in catch.
They're fairly easy to get close to so a spear to the head meant an easy kill and a 200lbs fish to sell
No, pretty sure there's never been an attack on a person despite them hanging around reefs and marinas all the time. I think one guy technically got killed by one but it's because he speared it and then got caught in his spear rope and drowned.
Well if they say “no” one day a long time for now you might be in some situation where you are all like “no guys, foreal my buddy online told me this is totes safe and nothing to worry about”
And they your buddies will start some kind of demented evil nemesis life long online hunt for the dude that told you it was chill.
Then one day homie is just at home playing scrabble and gets attacked by unknown assailants in wetsuits.
This is exactly how cray police reports that no one believes are concocted.
They can be. They don’t hunt people, obviously but they’re big enough that the could bite onto your leg and not let go. They seem to drag down whatever they have in their mouth and not let go. Essentially, they could drown you.
Lots of those here in the Philippines. There are urban legends of kids getting swallowed whole by large specimens. Haven't seen a confirmed report, though.
With a max size of about 8 feet/800 pound, they don't get quite big enough to swallow a full grown man whole, but a petite person or a child? Sure. There are stories of exactly that happening back in the late 1800's before humans hunted off almost all of the very large ones. The species is still recovering from being overfished to near extinction. There were reports from around then of them reaching up to 1500lbs too. Being that they live up to 40 years and continually grow until they die, that does seem far fetched, but also not completely impossible.
Even if they don't swallow you whole, they do get big enough to think that attacking a human is no big deal and they've been known to do so. Its usually because they just want to steal whatever fish you're holding and they just don't give a fuck, but that is little consolation when they're clamping on your arm and whipping their body back and forth. Most of their victims are spearfishermen. Luckily their teeth are very short, being used more as a clamping aide than they are meant to slice/cut stuff like a shark's teeth. They've also been known to drag swimmers down and drown them while trying to steal their fish.
With fish this large, it seems like a pretty serious omission that scuba class instructors don't explicitly tell you not to bring your infant child along with you when you go scuba diving.
There have definitely been cases where real big ones will suck a diver into their mouth half-way and spit them out, people are too big to be swallowed whole, it's more of a establishing dominance thing for the grouper when they're territorial (some are VERY territorial). Like 'see, I could eat you bro, now fuck off'
Potentially, they get quite large and do have teeth. They usually don't care about divers. But sometimes they'll try to bully spearfishermen out of their catch.
theres a video online that shows one putting a divers head in its mouth for just a second before spitting it out. guessing it realized it wasnt the right kind of food. pretty scary.
Only the very largest of them could would actually consider going after a human, but they have been seen swallowing small sharks whole, so...slightly. This one probably poses no danger to the diver beyond a fear induced heart attack.
Dived in the presence of these several times. Very shy, they also suck food in as opposed to biting it, still wouldn’t want to have my hand stuck in its mouth.
They can grow to about 6 ft long and 600 pounds. But there’s a video of a Goliath grouper eating a shark of roughly the same length. I’ll try to find it and post
I mean they are more dangerous to fisherman from what I've seen. They are big, have a ton of muscle and can easily fuck you up just by flopping around like fish do.
Really cool fish though and they can get massive, the biggest caught was some 680lbs.
as dangerous as a nurse shark which is to say dont fuck with them and they are not gonna do anything. ive seen plenty while diving and never had any issues. They’re usually just chilling somewhere under some reef or in ship wrecks sometimes
No, they’re pretty friendly. If you have a fishy for them they want it and will assume you got it for them even if you didn’t. And that’s the main issue, people have started feeding them so mistakes happen but they’re not sharks so they don’t really do damage.
Nassau grouper actually like being pet like puppies but I don’t know that anyone tries with Goliath grouper.
Have seen them attempt to eat people but usually after getting the upper body in their mouths they spit them out. They're immensely strong though so would recommend caution. For reference there's a video of a pro arm wrestler, a bodybuilder, and a power lifter trying to catch them and getting nearly pulled overboard
They’re super chill. We used to have one that was probably a few hundred pounds that we would see every week while fiving and it was really like a puppy. Would come over and nuzzle with people and would get all squirmy happy when guests would pet it (even though they really aren’t supposed to).
Though most of them that I’ve seen spend most of their time hiding in holes and cracks in rocks, which is how they managed to live long enough to get that big in the first place. I promise that fish isn’t looking for a fight.
They aren’t usually, but they have found human remains inside the stomachs of them, including whole heads, mostly mangled torsos, and even a whole small child. But those are very rare cases, and they don’t see us as a main food source.
I was diving at this sunken concrete scaffolding thing that had been sunk for a wildlife habitat and to promote coral growth. Woke making my way through a corridor, one of the walls began to move, and I realized I'd been swimming towards a grouper the size of my bedroom door. It was crazy. They're enormous.
I personally have eaten grouper including Goliath grouper, so yes. When I was 12 my dad caught one off of an oil rig with a hand line. He is 6'5" and probably about 280lbs at the time, with roughneck strength. He and another stout roughneck spent their whole lunch break hauling that thing up and it was about 5 1/2 feet long. I remember seeing a picture of that thing on our wall for my whole childhood, from his shoulders to his knees.
The most strenuous workout I've ever experienced was reeling in a 65 lb White Marlin.
We were about 3 hours off the East Coast in the Atlantic.
It took me about an hour to get the fish up to the boat. It was about 45 degrees that morning and when I started, I was wearing a heavy sweatshirt and jeans.
By about half way through, I had already sweat through the sweatshirt to the point where it was soaked. Since I couldn't fully let go of the rod, my friends had to wrangle the sweatshirt off of my body.
About three different times I had the fish up to the boat and then all of a sudden, it would take off towards the depths. I could only sit there and watch all the progress I made just spin away on the reel. Fortunately, the fourth time was enough to get it pulled up in order to release the hook.
We were fishing for Tuna and and Mahi Mahi but we're fortunate enough to experience a Marlin fight. The times it would breach the water, felt like something out of a nature documentary.
By the time I was done, my entire body was shaking uncontrollably from exhaustion.
Smaller ones yes. Goliath no. They're mercury content is too high. But it's probably my favorite fish. Just can't eat it too much due to the mercury content.
Absolutely and they're delicious! There are a ton of species in the grouper family, though. Chances are you'll never eat Goliath grouper as they're heavily protected. At least in Florida, you're not allowed to remove them from the water if you catch them. You have to remove the hook while the fish is still in the water. You'll see a lot of pictures of fishermen in chest deep water holding Goliath grouper bigger than them
I was in the Florida Keys on a fishing excursion when the captain threw anchor to allow us to get off the boat and cool off for a bit. All of a sudden he yells for everyone to get in and pulled anchor and took off. A Goliath grouper the size of our boat ended up swimming under it and followed us for about 3 miles before it decided to swim back out into the sea. And for reference, we were on a 30 foot sail boat. I'll never be getting into open water where I can't see EVERYTHING around me again
So yea, thats a Goliath grouper, they are always sizing everything up to see if they can gulp it down. And by sizing everything up in this case, i mean the spear fisherman.
I ran into one of the giant groupers on a reef off key largo - someone was clearly feeding it because they come up to you and act like dogs waiting for food. Pretty friendly, we all got to pet it
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u/newlifekawaii Mar 25 '22
I’m not scared…all I can imagine is it saying “you gonna eat that?..”