in the 1950s, investigators from the hawaii's division of fish and game conducted marine fauna surveys and found the hawaiian ichthyofauna was dominated by herbivorous fishes, which they concluded were "a useless end in the food chain". unlike many pacific islands, hawaii lacked any fish from the serranidae or lutjanidae families, so to increase recreational and commercial food fishing opportunities, and fill a perceived 'vacant ecological niche', collections of 11 species of snappers and groupers were imported from mexico, kiribati, the marquesas islands, and moorea, and introduced to hawaii. only three species thrived, dominated by the bluestripe snapper, now occupying many of the hawaiian islands.