Offgrid Living in Hawaii - Caught a Roi and Thoughts on Invasive Species

We caught this Roi which is a Peacock Grouper yesterday.

The Roi was introduced into Hawaii in the 1950's and is now considered an invasive species. This effort was to improve fishing for the fishermen in the islands. The problem is that people don't want to eat the fish.

Since the fish is a predator it tends to have a high Ciguatera level.

We don't seem to have many cases of Ciguatera where we live so we eat this fish. When we went to Hong Kong many years ago we saw this fish in the tanks of lots of restaurants.

A few diving organizations have Invasive Species Tournaments where the target species are invasive to try and pull the fish off the reef.

While we all do our part to not return the invasive species to the ocean when we catch them it is folly. Nature, and the ocean, is too big for us to have any impact. The effort to remove the fish is born out of the same arrogance mankind has in that it can "improve" nature.

The invasive species thrive because they have no natural predators.

We need to just respect nature and try to have as minimal impact as possible.