![]() This is a lot of reef fish they will eat! If a diver took three roi a dive and then two fish for his food, then he would be adding native fish to the reef in the long run. If each free diver would catch 3 roi on a dive he would save hundreds of reef fish from being eaten! Roi can eat 50 fish or more a year and can live for 10 years. I have video of many turtles and sharks with fish hooks and line dangling from their mouths, but free divers do not have this to worry about. Free divers can target certain species without damaging the reef or marine life. We need 5 or more free divers at each reef spearing roi on a regular basis. This helps control the population explosion but it is not enough. This would be very good!Ĭurrently free divers spear roi on a regular basis. If UH could make a good test kit that cost little then fishermen could go back to catching and eating roi. The current test kit for ciguatera is not extremely accurate and cost a lot. Now I see almost no aweoweo and 5 to 15 roi on each dive!įishermen do not normally eat the roi because they have been known to carry the ciguatera toxin and they could make you very sick! We are not yet sure what percent of the roi carry the toxin but I have sent over 300 roi to UH for testing and we should soon have some figures. Back then I could easily spear 5 to 10 aweoweo in one hour and saw one or two roi. Ten years ago at many spots on the north shore like Tunnels Reef, I have seen many of the native fish decline and the roi spread. This concentration of roi vs native fish is very dangerous for the long term health of our reefs. There are thousands of roi in Hanalei Bay! I have seen and taken video of roi all over Kaua'i and Hawaii and see the same thing in many places. Many times I see more roi, ta'ape and to'au on one dive than I see native fish and on my blog at I have a short movie post about roi, that shows their concentration on the reef and how I take them for testing. I also free dive to spear roi and I often see 20 roi or more in a two hour dive. Even though I have taken a lot of roi off the reef I still see 10 to 15 on each dive! I mount my spear gun onto my HD video camera and I take video of each roi before I spear it so I can document its behaviour, what fish are in the area and get a GPS, date and time on each take. In Hanalei Bay from the shore out to one mile I have done over 100 kayak scuba dives and I have speared over 80 roi of which I sent to UH for testing. They do not seem to be very territorial and after taking video of over 500 roi in Hanalei Bay I have not observed roi fighting each other. I have observed several large roi that seem to stay near the same caves but they will move when the surf changes or you scare them away. They know each lava tube and large roi live in the same area as young roi. I have followed many roi that travel 30 to 40 yards across a reef ducking into each cave and coming out of a different cave many yards away. These roi live from 5 feet deep to 80 feet deep and they move freely about the reef. I have video of many roi on the north shore of Kaua'i and I see an average of 14 roi on each, one hour scuba dive. I am currently doing a ciguatera research project with Paul Bienfang at UH where I send him roi for research and testing. I also make movies for schools, government agencies and the public about our marine life and invasive species like roi, ta'ape and to'au. I shoot HD video of roi and other marine life and have over 1,000 of underwater video from Kaua'i. I am a marine biologist and I have over 3,000 scuba dives, many of which were observing the roi's behaviour. Roi know every cave and crack in the reef. Ulua and puhi will also eat these cave fish, but the cave fish recognize them as predators and have learned to avoid being eaten most of the time. These fish will swim right up to a roi to be eaten. Since roi did not evolve in Kaua'i these cave fish do not recognize roi as a predator. These red cave fish are active at night and sleep in the caves during the day. Roi spend most of their time in deep caves and cracks in the reef where they prey on other fish like aweoweo, mempachi and ala'ihi. This fish fills a nitch that no other Hawaiian fish fills and it eats a wide variety of reef fish. This fish grows to about 16 inches and five pounds and they are now very common in Kaua'i. Roi or peacock grouper, were introduced into Hawaii in 1956 from Mo'orea to add to the food source for Hawaiian fishermen.
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