Zach congrats on graduating! Question regarding taking Rois off the reef...then throwing them back in. Don't they get eaten and in turn just pass the cigiuatera onto the fish that eat them?? Thought this was why we needed to shoot them and literally remove them from the system. lemme know if I dont understand the logic. thanks, love the content!!
Great question! As far as I know, all reef species have certain levels of ciguatera, it’s something that kinda just exists in a reef ecosystem. It begins with smaller fish eating a certain microalgae that contains the toxin, which are then eaten by larger fish who then receive the toxin in themselves. For example, omilus and uluas are also known to have ciguatera because they are big reef predators that feed on a lot of those small fish that each have some ciguatera in their meat. Likewise, rois are infamous for eating ridiculous amounts of our native reef fish and so they too get a lot more of the toxin built up in their system. So I think(though I could be wrong) that regardless of whether or not rois were present in our reefs there still would be ciguatera circulating through our reef fish. But the biggest reason why I choose to take rois off the reef is because they are invasive. I haven’t been doing it necessarily to get ciguatera off the reef, I just want to kill as many rois as possible so that they can no longer hurt the native fish population here in Hawai’i. My personal biggest concern about rois (as well as the other two invasive fish species) is the damage they do to our native species. Thanks for watching, hope this made sense!
@@zaching Wow thanks for the very logical and thoughtful response!! I appreciate you taking the time to explain. Best of luck on your continued hunting and channel!!!!
You are right about the passing of the toxin. Plenty people take it to their gardens to use as fertilizer. Some people eat em without any issues. I guess 1 -2 pounders should be ok but those big ones he shot might be iffy. I heard they taste good though lol
@@zaching Hey bro, one of my guys at the local dive shop in Waipahu recommended that you bury them next to a tree by the shore or something, that way the trees get nutrients, but the cig doesn't get spread. Thought it was a good practice. Nice content!
