Roi, the misunderstood fish

Roi, the misunderstood fish

By Dakota Grossman

Source: The Maoi News

7/4/2020

Over the years, roi have been labeled as a culprit for the declining fish populations and reef health, but marine specialists say these fish may not be as bad as they seem.

Data show that nearshore fisheries were on a slow downturn many decades before roi were introduced to Hawaii, they said Wednesday.

“We got historical problems with overfishing in Hawaii, so we have to be very careful at what those root causes are,” said Alan Friedlander, chief scientist of National Georgraphic’s Pristine Seas project and director of the Fisheries Ecology Research Lab at the University of Hawaii. “A lot of people like to point at different things — it’s roi, ta’ape, it’s pollution, habitat loss.

“A lot of those are true, but not one thing is causing the decline in nearshore fish.”

During the Maui Nui Marine Resource Council’s monthly “Know Your Ocean” speaker series, which is being held via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic, marine specialists said there has been about a 90 percent drop in catch rates of the “resource fish that we know and love” over the past 100 years.

Concerns have been raised over roi’s diet of smaller native fish and the toxins carried in its flesh that can make people sick. As a result, communities throughout Hawaii have organized roundups and spearfishing events that target the introduced roi.

“Fishery resources have been on the decline for quite awhile, even as early as the 1900s; we’ve got records showing that nearshore fish have been overfished, over-exploited, and that continues on through the years,” Friedlander said. “We’re not starting from a recent problem, we’re starting from a fairly significant historical problem, and some of that is evident in the catch data that we have dating back from the early 1900s.”

Localized overfishing is referenced all the way back to 1902 in Honolulu, and again in 1923 in the Ka Nupepe Kuokoa newspaper. Territorial Fish and Game Commissioner Hercules Kelly also noted in 1925 that Hawaii’s waters showed signs of wasteful fishing methods and techniques and overfishing.