Monitoring Sawfish Abundance

The smalltooth sawfish Pristis pectinata was listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 2003. They were once common in the Gulf of Mexico and off the east coast of the United States. Decades of fishing pressure, both commercial and recreational, and habitat loss caused the population to decline significantly during the second half of the twentieth century. Today they exist mostly in southern Florida.

The completion of the Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery Plan in early 2007 heralded a new phase of management for the US distinct population segment of this species. Research and monitoring priorities identified in the Recovery Plan now need to be implemented.

One of the high priority tasks to be identified in the plan was the monitoring of the number of juvenile sawfish in various regions throughout Florida. One of the more important regions for smalltooth sawfish is the section of coast from Marco Island to Florida Bay (Simpfendorfer and Wiley 2007). This region encompasses the coast of the Ten Thousand Islands and Everglades National Park, which is outside of the areas covered in the fishery independent monitoring program run by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI).

Research at the Panama City Laboratory will survey an area previously identified by Simpfendorfer and Wiley (2007) to monitor the abundance of juvenile sawfish. Sampling will occur primarily when juvenile sawfish are pupped in this region (January through May) to monitor recruitment of young-of-the-year animals.

The National Sawfish Encounter Database is maintained and hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History. Please visit their site for more information regarding sawfish conservation.