The Grouper

It all started with breakfast on the morning of October 10, 1992. Three friends (Al, Wayne, and Ken) and I were in the Bahamas for two weeks of diving. This was day six. The weather was calm, clear, and warm.

On completing breakfast, I noticed that Ken still had two intact pieces of toast on his plate. I was curious about why he had taken the toast but hadn't eaten it, and I asked. He announced his intention to feed the toast to fish during one of the day's dives. He'd thought it through. He'd put the toast into a plastic bag, and dispense it slowly to whatever fish happened to be interested. The fish would respect the relative size difference, and would politely wait for food to be dispensed.

I'd fed toast to fish before. Usually, you end up in the middle of a mob of yellowtail snappers and sergeant majors. I'd also stopped doing this because this kind of mob scene isn't the kind of behavior in which I'd like to see fish engaged. To phrase this another way, I didn't find it aesthetically pleasing. However, I had no objection if someone else did it.

I figured that Ken really didn't know how thoroughly mobbed he would be. I thought that seeing his reaction would be humorous.

The first dive of the day was at Barracuda Heads. Maximum depth: 50 feet. Perfect for fish feeding. We jump in and head for the bottom.

Nassau grouper

The site contains a number of coral heads separated by sand. We settle onto the sand. A Nassau grouper wanders over to check us out. It's about 16" in length, a respectable size. There are no other fish in the immediate vicinity.


Ken pulls out his plastic bag of (now soggy) toast, carefully opens it just wide enough to reach in and extract a bit of toast. The grouper has taken an interest and floats in the water about 2' in front of Ken. The first bit of toast comes out, and the grouper moves in and takes it in the blink of an eye. It's now about 1' in front of Ken, who reaches for another piece. As quickly as a lightning strike, the grouper moves in for the remainder of the toast. But Ken's got a good hold on the bag.

Now there's a scuffle. The grouper booms, filling the water with low frequency sound. Ken and the grouper are twisting and pirouetting as each struggles to get possession of the bag. Bubbles, sand, and fins are flying in every direction. From my vantage point, I can't tell whether the grouper has Ken's hand in his mouth or not. I start to move in to help, but they separate before I can get there. The entire struggle takes less than 5 seconds.

The grouper has won, but it's eaten a plastic bag in doing so. Groupers are tough, but the plastic bag might eventually kill it. I feel sick. I feel responsible. I could have prevented this whole episode at breakfast. We continue the dive. My logbook shows that we saw lots of other stuff that dive, but now I only remember the grouper.

In September 1993, Wayne and I were back in the Bahamas. On September 4, we revisited Barracuda Heads. Halfway down to the coral heads, I was bitten on the hand by a Nassau grouper, which had approached me from behind. I couldn't be certain, but I'm reasonably sure that it was the same grouper. A Nassau grouper has never bitten me before, and this aggressiveness concerns me. The grouper, on finding that we have no food, spots some other divers and takes off. I pulled out my slate from a BC pocket to write a note to Wayne, and was immediately mobbed by yellowtails. Something's not right here. Fish don't naturally look to humans for food: these have been "trained".

After the dive, I heard one of the other divers relate his story of an encounter with an aggressive grouper on that dive. He showed the bite marks. Apparently, the grouper was so aggressive that the diver felt it necessary to terminate the encounter by stabbing the grouper with his dive knife. Other groupers immediately attacked the injured grouper.

Later that week, at a dive site near Barracuda Heads, I saw a Nassau grouper, about 16" in length, with an enormous section of its back missing, bitten away.