A 21-year Florida ban on harvesting Goliath grouper will last at least a few more years.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation spent hours considering the topic of Goliath grouper — formerly known as jewfish — during its meeting this week in Apalachicola, but declined to take any action that would change the harvest ban in place since 1990.
Commissioners said anglers ask them almost every day when they will be able to harvest a Goliath grouper," said agency spokesman Lee Schlesinger.
"But there are real issues with the species stock assessment," Schlesinger said. "There's a lot of uncertainty, and this is a fish population that you have to treat with a lot of caution."
A recent assessment report on Goliath grouper populations was rejected as inadequate by a science committee of the federal Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council.
The state Fish and Wildlife Research Institute has launched several studies that seek to better understand the Goliath grouper life cycle, and ascertain when the population has increased to the point where harvest can resume.
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