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Fishing News Headlines
5/14/2001
Sawfish meandering toward endangered status
BY EMILY ROACH, Citizen Staff Writer
Looking like a cross between a shark and a ray, with a saw blade-type snout jutting from its head, the smalltooth sawfish is making its last stand in Keys waters, the Everglades and other South Florida lagoon areas.
Because this unique fish has dwindled in the past 100 years -- possibly down to 1 percent of the numbers existing just 50 years ago -- the National Marine Fisheries is taking steps to save it.
Posted in April as a proposed addition to the endangered-species list, federal officials are taking comments on whether the smalltooth sawfish should be protected nationally, as it is in Florida. It would be the first marine fish living in U.S. waters to be listed.
The bottom feeder -- reported to be seen slashing at schools of small fish with their saw and eating the wounded -- can grow to 20 feet. Slow and lethargic, the sawfish grows for 10 years before reproducing and usually meanders through shallow waters.
"They're a strange looking fish. I've seen a few," said Rick Beaver, biologist at the Florida Marine Research Institute Marathon office.
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