That's too bad because today nearly everyone believes bringing these fish to Hawaii was a mistake. People here, it turns out, don't like to eat ta'ape as much as they like native snappers, such as opakapaka, ehu and onaga. So even though the ta'ape catches are large, the demand is low and the fish aren't lucrative. Native snappers, however, are lucrative. The problem with these species is that their numbers are dwindling to a point where the state is in the process of implementing new fishing restrictions to save the industry.
Some people believe that ta'ape eat the young.
Others claim that ta'ape are outcompeting the native species for their favorite foods such as crabs, shrimp and small fish. Still others think the native species have been overfished. True answers to this problem are hard to find. Fisheries biologists have difficulty studying native snappers because they live several hundred feet deep, far beyond scuba limits. No one knows.