Goliath groupers are a defensive fish.
Considering that they are one of the more aggressive fish species (which is an actual fact, I’m not just making that up), it certainly doesn’t help that these fish can be the size of the sofa you might be sitting on right now as you read this. The largest species of grouper can weigh close to 1,000 pounds, though most groupers will weigh in at 700 to 800 pounds.
As you might imagine, being that large (some grow to be longer than 6-feet) gives the Goliath grouper tremendous confidence when dealing with other sea creatures. While generally not dangerous to people in the water, they can be territorial, and due to their size these fish don’t exhibit a lot of fear, which explains why they are sometimes willing to attack humans.
For the most part, grouper feed on smaller fish, or basically any other thing that isn’t faster than them (and isn’t too large). They’ll occasionally be brave and take on larger prey, like this massive grouper that swallowed a 4-foot shark whole. If a Goliath grouper can take on a shark of that size with ease, they certainly aren’t intimidated when it comes to humans.
There are scary stories out there about these massive fish even killing humans. With their size, its certainly possible (as scary as that may be), and considering some of the things groupers have been caught on camera doing, I might even upgrade that possible to probable.
Take this video for instance, where a Goliath grouper suddenly attacked a scuba diver and tried to take their head off. Or in this clip that I’ve attached below, which shows a Goliath grouper being an enforcer with divers in Jupiter, Florida as it bites at one person and steals one of their fish right off of their spear.
One of the scuba divers can be seen trying to swim away from the approaching grouper, and when they do, the giant fish speeds up and takes the person’s swim-fin (scuba shoe or flipper) right off of their foot. As the video continues, one could assume that the attack on the shoe was just a distraction so the Goliath grouper could then focus in on the fish on one of the diver’s spears.
It was like taking candy from a baby for this grouper. The spear might as well have been a kebab at a backyard barbecue, because the Goliath grouper gobbled the smaller amberjack right up. I’m sure it ended up giving compliments to the chef (the scuba diver who had speared it).
Check it out:
