Not Many Of Us Seeing Sawfish

March 15, 2009

Release from: Matt Badolato
Florida Today

One hundred years ago, roaming the Indian River Lagoon were 20-foot sawfish -- plenty of them. Today, they are nearly extinct.

"They were so abundant around the turn of the century that they were considered a pain in the neck by fishermen," said George Burgess, an ichthyologist and director of the Florida Program for Shark Research. "They would make Swiss cheese out of nets and fisherman would kill them out of spite or cut off their saws as novelties."

Eventually the destructive netting took its toll, and a species that once thrived statewide is now found exclusively in southwest Florida and Florida Bay.

Sawfish are actually a type of ray, but are shaped like a half-shark, half-stingray with a flat, winged head and long, slender body. Their saw, which is called a rostrum, is lined with heavily calcified teeth and sensory pores that help the sawfish detect prey buried in the bottom.

"They feed mainly on crustaceans throughout their lives," Burgess said. "We think that as they mature they begin to feed on fish, and the adults will use their saws to slash through schools of baitfish, like mullet."

Two types of sawfish live in Florida waters, the largetooth and smalltooth. They grow slowly, mature late, and produce few young. These traits make them especially vulnerable to overfishing and slow to recover from depletion. In many countries, they are harvested for their fins and saws for use in food and traditional medicine.

"They are found worldwide in tropical and sub-tropical waters," Burgess said. "Juveniles prefer shallow grassflats and mangrove shorelines, while the sub-adults and adults begin to venture out to deeper water, but they stay inshore most of their lives. Therefore, coastal development in Florida leads to habitat destruction and pollution threatens the resident Florida sawfish."

In 1999, Burgess and his colleagues petitioned to have the sawfish listed as an endangered species. After conducting extensive surveys, they concluded that 99 percent of the original U.S. population had been wiped out. Four years later, the fish was added to the list as the first marine fish to be considered endangered. It is now illegal to harm, harass, hook or net sawfish in any way, except with a permit or in a permitted fishery.

"Unlike other important fish species like salmon or tuna which hold a high commercial value, there has never been a real market for sawfish other than as a novelty," Burgess said. "As a result, we are missing decades of research on them." But Burgess and other scientists are aiming to change all of that. They have established the National Sawfish Encounter Database, an online catalog of every reported sawfish sighting or release. He relies on fishermen and divers who come across a sawfish to report the encounter by phone or on their Web site.

"Each sighting has value," says Burgess. "(It) gives us a clue to their recovery and an indication of status of the species. The Indian River Lagoon is of great concern to us, as it was historically a prime habitat for them."

Burgess sees the sawfish conservation plan as a long-term goal.

"We believe it will take 100 years for the populations to return to healthy levels, so my colleagues and I will not get to see it. It may take a couple of generations to see these magnificent animals rebound and thrive once again."