Sawfish Population Shouldn't Be Cut

February 4, 2009

Release from: Byron Stout
News-Press.com

As if Southwest Florida's construction industry didn't have enough to worry about, now it's got smalltooth sawfish.

Sawfish (there's only the one local species) reportedly grow to 25 feet, counting bills sprouting fearsome spikes they can wield like medieval broadswords. But truth be known, the great fish's armament is better suited to slashing shrimp than dismembering hapless construction workers.

No, the beleaguered construction industry's worry is not of bloodthirsty attacks. It is that sawfish, like manatees, will stop its already flagging structures — docks, piers, jetties, breakwaters and seawalls — as well as inhibiting its gouging of channels and harbors. Most such work is done within the 3-foot depths along the mangrove shorelines of Lee and Charlotte counties that are proposed as critical habitat for sawfish — the first saltwater fish designated as an endangered species.

The economic analysis of the potential impacts of the proposed sawfish rules isn't completely broken down, but NOAA notes that marine construction is a significant subsector of the industry that represented 27,697 jobs in 2005, and $1.08 billion (with a B) in payroll in Lee County alone.

If the "critical habitat" designation is passed as proposed, that would mean that NOAA Fisheries would join the federal agencies that must review any projects that might impact said habitat. So, for waterfront buyers who might like a dock out back, we're talking more time, more paperwork, more environmental consulting fees, and

more bureaucrat job security. And you're hearing that from a flaming liberal.

On the flaming liberal upside, however, I'm saying that's a good thing. Sawfish are really cool, as fish go.

They're so cool that early sportsmen, who began flocking to Florida to catch tarpon before the turn of the 20th century, couldn't resist killing some giants for the requisite hero photos to send back home. Nor could kids like me resist gigging a few babies, back in the 1960s, for the sake of a bill on the wall.

The worst offenders of all were net fishermen, who typically killed sawfish in order to safely disentangle them from their nets, and to keep them from blundering into their nets again. In 1962 I caught a small sawfish in my 50-foot, Sears & Roebuck gill net, and I can personally attest it was a nightmare getting it out. That thing crocheted itself into my nylon meshes like a garden spider wraps a bug in its web, OMG!

So far, NOAA estimates that sawfish have been wiped out of 90 percent of their historic range, which once extended around the Gulf and well up the Atlantic Coast. Now the surviving 5 percent of the population exists mainly in the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary and Everglades National Park.

So it's a good thing they're being protected, and maybe word of that will keep people like the North Fort Myers neighbor of my friend, Frances D. Williams, from eating those he catches out behind his trailer. I've seen them myself within the past year in the Caloosahatchee, and I get reports of a handful of catches from the river every year.

For those who have misgivings about protecting juvenile sawfish habitat, however, there's still time to protest. An extension has been granted, and written comments on the proposed rule will still be accepted until 5 p.m. Feb. 13. More information and lots of background material is available online at the Web site of NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office: http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/SmalltoothSawfish.htm.