Page 81 - World of Animals - Issue #39

Sawfi sh

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50 72 million years 2007 Where in the world

Sawfish are a Individual sawfish The fossil record The year Sawfish are found in shallow tropical waters across the world, however their range

long-lived species representing for the ancestors of sawfish gained has significantly decreased due to threats such as overfishing and habitat loss

and can live to the four species are the sawfish species international
ripe old age of currently in public alive today dates protection from
50 in the wild. aquariums. back... trade.

Historical
Current

Saving the saws
Katy Duke is curator at The Deep in Hull and

manages the sawfish studbook for the zoo
and aquarium community
Sawfi sh all

belong to the Why are sawfish important?
family ‘Pristidae’, a They are the most endangered
word derived from family of sharks on the planet.
the Greek word They’ve had a tough ride!
for ‘saw’.
Is there a captive breeding program?
Of the five species, four are represented in

aquariums globally. One of those species,
Pristis pectinata (smalltooth sawfish) is

the first one that has been bred, but there
are none of those within Europe so we are
still waiting. We believe that our animals
[in Europe] are becoming sexually mature,
we think, around 15 years of age. Captive
breeding is the kind of thing that aquariums
can offer – especially when it comes to data

sharing. Aquariums are really well placed

to be able to offer data that can’t really be
studied in the wild.

What else can be done?

In the field, work is being done to discover
where populations are at the moment. In a
lot of places it’s surveying local communities
to try and find out whether they’re still seeing

Pristis in their waters, and talk about where
the numbers are declined over the years
and so on. Awareness-raising is a big one
16-37 pairs of because still in a lot of countries they are still
‘teeth’ on their

The delicate and intricate rostrum becomes easily rostrum, which fished and caught and eaten.
entangled in discarded fishing nets, posing a huge are actually

risk to the fish. modified scales. How can readers help?

Help the ‘See-A-Saw’ campaign – the Sawfish

Conservation Society are collecting data from
old rostrums. The campaign is asking people
28% 42 92 16 21 ½ who see these old ‘curios’ to report that data

to the Sawfish Conservation Society, because
The snout, or The number of The number Countries protect The number of Unfortunately, we can gain all kinds of data from this, even © Norbert Wu/Minden Pictures/FLPA
DNA samples!
‘rostrum’ takes up countries that of countries in sawfish by law. countries that sawfish are now

around a quarter have lost at least which sawfish It’s illegal to fish have completely extinct in half

of the sawfish’s one of their native species are or for them as they lost sawfish from of their former For more information, head to
total length! sawfish species. were present. are endangered. their waters. range. sawfishconservationsociety.org

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