The Spearos Who Don’t Eat Fish
Submitted by Alyssa Kilzer
Meet Morri and Duke. They currently reside in Kona, HI and are my top people to dive with on the Big Island. Morri grew up in Southern California and Duke grew up in O’ahu. Both spend most of their dive time with camera in hand. Morri takes amazing underwater photography and Duke gets killer video with his drone. They combine forces to document the ocean and the creatures that call it home. Because of their personal views on ocean conservation and environmental activism, they do not consume fish. For Morri, it's been over 10 years. Funny enough, they are excellent at shooting fish!
A day of diving with the duo usually starts with a honk coming from the street outside my sister’s house on the Big Island. My sister and her family happen to live close, so I often hitch a ride with them. The next stop is coffee and breakfast, which is usually when I find out where we are diving. Often, the deciding factor for dive spot choice is shark activity, followed by ocean conditions. When most divers consider shark activity, they look for areas where they can avoid sharks, but Morri and Duke search for locations where they are most likely to encounter sharks. This is one of the many special things about diving with them
Upon arriving at the dive site, Duke does a bit of reconnaissance with his drone. Morri and I crowd around him trying to block the sun and get a view of the drone feed on his phone. The view from above allows us to spot turtles, manta rays, whales, and sharks through the famously clear waters off the Kona coast. On one particular outing, we spotted 14 different black tip sharks. The reef's health has improved since the 19 month El Nino of 2014/2019, however it has a long way to go. The state of Hawaii has been more progressive about improving the reef's health by banning certain chemicals in sunscreen and providing ocean interaction education for tourists.
If we’ve decided to go spearfishing rather than just take in the sights, the pre-dive ritual has fewer steps. Basically, it's a two item checklist. One: does the site look diveable? Two: does at least one person have a camera in case we see something really cool? Diving with photographers is the best; they notice everything. Keen eyes spot species carefully hidden in the shelter of the open conduits through coral and rock. Morri has a reputation for spotting “treasure”. Sometimes it's a lost fishing knife. Other times it's a little fiberglass three prong pole spear that got left behind. Duke has an eye for finding interesting “pukas”, meaning sea shells. If something big swims by it is safe to assume they will catch it camera.
Morri and Duke spearfish, but not for food. They target invasive species that have a negative impact on the local environment. Their favorite target species is known as “Roi”, or peacock grouper. They contain the ciguatera biotoxin and are unsafe to eat. Roi are aggressive predators, and can quickly multiply, damaging the ecosystem by consuming resources and displacing indigenous species. On an average day of spearing, Morri and Duke shoot between 4-9 Roi each. They have even participated in invasive-species spearfishing competitions in Kona. Like many fish, the bigger Roi can be more challenging to shoot. Diving twenty to fifty feet with a smaller reef gun is the ideal way to target the more squirrely ones. The excitement on Morri and Duke’s faces when they spot a bigger Roi is infectious. I’ve watched them carefully coordinate an ambush, communicating by what looks like telepathy.
Shooting fish you have no intention of eating has its advantages. If you are lucky, sometimes you’ll have surprise “visitors”. Not long after you spear a Roi, you’ll notice eels, octopus, fish and other Roi magically appear hoping to snag a meal. If you’re really lucky, you'll see one of Hawaii’s 40 shark species. On one particular dive, I saw my first tiger shark. Whenever you are spearing in water known to be home to sharks, it’s never a bad idea to attach your stringer to your float or the end of your floatline. Tiger sharks can be very curious.
The Hawaii Marine Education and Research Center works in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries and has been supportive of the spearing Morri and Duke do to help protect the indigenous aquatic species. They are currently working on grants to help equip Morri and Duke with better spearguns to, as Duke says, “destroy da Roi”.
Fellow spearos: if you have a friend who doesn’t think they can get into spearfishing because they don't eat fish, I hope this story about Morri and Duke will inspire a new perspective. For those of you who already spear, look into invasive species and contact your local Department of Fish and Game for more information on how you can help.