Groupers Forever


Several years ago, a spawning aggregation of Black groupers was discovered off Bermuda in 120 feet of water. Very little is known about the reproductive behavior of the Black grouper. The team from Triangle Diving began going out on their own time to document the spawning. They obtained training in rebreathers and borrowed camera equipment for their mission: to call attention to the rare event in the hope of keeping the aggregation closed to fishing. The fish, normally fairly solitary, gather together at specific times of the year to mate.
 

Distracted by their drive to court and reproduce, they are easy targets for fishing.  Large spawning aggregations of groupers and snappers have been exploited by fishing, to the point of population collapse, all over the Tropical Western Atlantic.

Graham Christmas moved to Bermuda as a cabinetmaker in 2004. Four months later, he took his first dive and two years and several hundred dives later, joined the Triangle Diving team as a divemaster and subsequently became an instructor. The Team’s decision to switch from open-circuit SCUBA to rebreathers to study the Black Grouper spawning aggregation proved to be a breakthrough in allowing them to observe the grouper mating rituals without disturbing the fish. Graham’s dive travels have taken him to many places including Bonaire, Utila, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Galapagos. He is now concentrating on studying the craft of underwater filmmaking.
 

   

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 Major funding for Sensational Sea Two DVD was provided by the Carrow Foundation.