These endangered fish are turning up dead in the Everglades
Federal agents are looking for the person or people who killed at least seven critically endangered smalltooth sawfish and discarded their carcasses along the road near Everglades City this week.
The fish were found by an Everglades National Park Service staffer on the causeway between Everglades City and Chokoloskee Island, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement.
Two had their saws, known as rostra, removed, and one was stripped of its meat, according to NOAA.
The rostra are lined with teeth that look like saws, thus the fish’s name. Although they’re shaped like sharks, sawfish are rays since their mouths and gills are underneath their bodies, according to NOAA .
Six of the sawfish were discovered Sunday and one more was found Friday, said Kim Amendola, NOAA FIsheries communications supervisor.
Found among the discarded sawfish were two dead bonnethead sharks, which are the smallest members of the hammerhead family.
Harvesting a bonnethead is not a federal or state crime, said Tracy Dunn, assistant director of NOAA law enforcement’s southeast division.
Since sawtooth only reproduce every other year and give birth to between seven and 14 young, scientists say this week’s discovery was “nearly the equivalent to one mother’s entire litter.”
They are also slow to grow and mature late in life, so any large loss of individual sawfish can have a dramatic effect on their populations, said Adam Brame, sawfish recovery coordinator for NOAA Fisheries.
“It can really set back recovery,” Brame said.
Sawfish, which are in the same subclass of fish as sharks and rays, are generally now only found off the Florida coast, especially in southwest Florida, where mothers give birth. They were once commonly found in the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida, and along the East Coast from Florida to North Carolina, according to NOAA.
The government placed them on the Endangered Species List in 2003.
Dunn said killing sawfish is a Class-A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.
NOAA is offering a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the criminal conviction of the assessment of a civil penalty in the case. Tips can be left, including anonymously, at 800-853-1964.
