'Critically Endangered' 13-Foot Sawfish Spotted in Florida

A critically endangered sawfish has been spotted in the waters of northwestern Florida in what is being hailed as a positive sign for the species.

The "exciting encounter" occurred in June when marine researchers Dean Grubbs, Gavin Naylor and students caught, tagged and released the 13-foot smalltooth sawfish off the coast of Cedar Key, Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory (CML) said Monday in a Facebook post. Cedar Key is an island city located on the Gulf Coast.

The sighting of the adult female came during an annual summer field course taught by Grubbs, an associate director at the CML, and Naylor, who is a director of the Florida Museum of Natural History's shark research program. The location of the encounter is a hint that the species may be making a slow recovery.

"As far as I know, there has never been a sawfish tagged as far north as this one," Grubbs told Newsweek. "We have tracked others tagged in South Florida that moved further north, but none have been tagged this far north."

There are five species of sawfish, all of which belong to the elasmobranch animal group that includes rays, skates and sharks. Although they are shark-like in appearance, sawfish are actually rays. The name refers to the defining characteristic of these creatures—their long, flat, snouts lined with sharp teeth that almost resemble a chain saw.

The smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata) is a species that is found in the eastern and western Atlantic. In lives in the western regions of the ocean, from the United States to Brazil. But while this species was once a common sight along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, it is now rarely seen in most U.S. waters.

Smalltooth sawfish populations declined dramatically during the 20th century as a result of habitat loss, fishing bycatch and other factors. Since 1996, the species has been listed as "critically endangered" in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

"The center of their distribution has always been in southwest Florida, but when the population was healthy they were frequently seen outside of this range, migrating as far north as Texas and North Carolina," Grubbs said. "As that population declined, the distribution contracted, and sawfish were rarely seen outside of southwest Florida."

He continued: "Though seeing a sawfish is still considered a rare event, in certain areas of southwest Florida, which are the critical habitat regions, smalltooth sawfish are caught with relatively high frequency."

Conservation measures have been enacted to promote the recovery of smalltooth sawfish in the United States. The species has been protected in Florida since 1992, for example. In addition, gill nets—a major source of mortality in juvenile sawfish—were banned in 1995. And in 2003 smalltooth sawfish became the first native marine fish listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

These measures appear to have had an impact, with the U.S. smalltooth sawfish population seemingly showing some "positive signs of a slow recovery"—the only one in the world to do so, according to Grubbs.

The researcher serves on the U.S. Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Implementation Team, which, among other work, looks at the occurrence of sawfish in areas outside of southwest Florida to assess how the species is recovering.

"In recent years, there have been a number of public encounters—reports by fishers primarily—of sawfish further north, in the Florida Panhandle, for example," Grubbs said.

"Adult sawfish I have tagged with acoustic transmitters in the Florida Keys have been detected as far north as the Florida Panhandle in the Gulf of Mexico and Charleston, South Carolina, in the Atlantic," he said. "These are all good signs. But prior to this year, no sawfish had been tagged and tracked north of southwest Florida."

Grubbs said it has been an "exciting" summer for sawfish in Florida in light of recent developments.

"Tonya Wiley of Havenworth Coastal Conservation tagged three newborn sawfish in Tampa Bay for the first time, which is about 60 miles north of their known nursery areas," Grubbs said.

"And about a week later, we tagged the adult female near Cedar Key, which is about 200 miles north of where any tagged adults have been," he continued. "The adult we tagged is now carrying a transmitter that will allow us to track her movements for the next 10 years, which is very exciting."

In an article published on the Florida Museum website, Naylor said the encounter was a perfect learning opportunity for the students involved.

"I can't think of a better way for a group of young people studying environmental and conservation biology to learn about this critically endangered and incredibly spectacular animal," he said. "So much of the news about Earth's climate and environment is doom and gloom, but this is a potent reminder that if you leave things alone, many species are capable of recovery."

He continued: "What's remarkable to me is that they're creeping back into exactly the previous habitats and range from which they've been extirpated. It's as if they have a deeply embedded knowledge of where to go."

If you see a sawfish in the wild, report it to the encounter hotline at 1-844-4SAWFISH. These reports help inform the research on sawfish.