In a desperate effort to save one of earth’s rarest fish from a mysterious die-off, a rescue team in the Florida Keys has just successfully captured its first distressed smalltooth sawfish and relocated it to a rehabilitation facility in Sarasota.
The initial rescue happened April 5 off Cudjoe Key, just days after a federal effort was launched to track down and attempt to rescue sawfish that have been inexplicably spinning and thrashing.
For the past week, the 11-foot male sawfish was in a temporary holding tank in the Keys under veterinarian care, according to Tonya Wiley, team leader of the Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Team and director of Palmetto-based Havenworth Coastal Conservation. Crews have been taking samples of the fish to try to understand the mysterious behavior that has now plagued more than four dozen different species.
On Thursday, crews drove the sawfish in a truck equipped with a 3,000-gallon fish tank on a nearly 7-hour journey from the Florida Keys to Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota.
“We’re going to learn everything we possibly can from this animal,” Wiley said. “This will help us with future sawfish.”
The animal was located after a person found the sawfish swimming in circles and reported it to the sawfish hotline, according to Mote Marine Laboratory. Once rescuers found the animal, they measured it and took samples before loading it onto a boat and helping it breathe on a short boat ride to a temporary holding tank.
At least 38 endangered sawfish have died since January, and now more than 50 species — including stingrays, crabs and sharks — have shown signs of distress including spinning and whirling, according to the latest data provided by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Sawfish, with their chainsaw-like snout used for hunting and digging, were the first marine fish species to earn federal protections in 2003.
The cause for the bizarre behavior is still being determined. State animal necropsies to date have shown no signs of pathogens or bacterial infection, though sawfish tissue continues to be tested. Water oxygen levels, salt content and temperature are not currently suspected to be the cause, either. And wildlife experts haven’t found any toxins produced by red tide blooms.
State wildlife biologists have sent 52 fish and a dozen sawfish samples to the University of South Alabama for further study. As of Wednesday, state crews have fielded more than 400 reports to the fish kill hotline and have collected more than 200 samples from fish.
The first reports of spinning fish in the Florida Keys began in fall 2023, and the first sawfish death was reported in January. State wildlife officials say it’s possible the sawfish deaths and the uptick in abnormal behavior are related.
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Explore all your options“We couldn’t sit back and continue to watch these endangered sawfish die. (We) had to launch this complex emergency response effort with partners to attempt to rescue and rehabilitate smalltooth sawfish in hopes of preventing additional losses of this endangered species,” said Adam Brame, the sawfish recovery coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Services.
Brame is leading the first-of-its-kind rescue operation in the Keys.
“We’re not sure how it’s going to turn out, obviously, this has never been done. But as long as we are learning and making positive strides, then the effort will continue,” Brame said.
The Florida Legislature has offered up to $2 million to get to the bottom of the die-off, but Wiley said most of that money won’t be available until the summertime.
“We can’t wait that long,” Wiley said, adding that the rescue effort “desperately needs a big infusion of money.”
“The organizations working on this have blown through their budgets and reserves,” she said.
If you’d like to help the sawfish research or rescue efforts, you can donate to the cause by visiting sawfishrecovery.org.
To report a sawfish sighting, email Sawfish@MyFWC.com or call 844-472-9347.
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First endangered sawfish rescued from mysterious die-off in Florida Keys - Tampa Bay Times
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