Smalltooth sawfish

Sawfish eat fish, and sometimes shrimp and crabs.

A sawfish swings its saw from side to side to catch fish. Its saw can also feel tiny signals from animals nearby.

Smalltooth sawfish mostly eat fish, and sometimes shrimp and crabs. To hunt, a sawfish slashes its saw through a school of fish, swinging it from side to side to stun or spear them, then eats them.

The saw is also a sense organ. It holds a special system that can detect the weak electricity made by other animals, so a sawfish can tell when prey is nearby even if it cannot see it.

NOAA Fisheries describes a diet mainly of fish with some invertebrates such as shrimp and crabs. The rostrum is both weapon and sensor: sawfish slash it through schools, swinging it side to side to impale and stun prey, and its electrosensory system detects the weak electric fields of nearby animals.

The same rostrum makes sawfish easy to entangle in nets, which the IUCN identifies as a driver of decline independent of trade.

Young sawfish stay in very shallow water near mangroves.

Big fish cannot reach them there. When they grow bigger, they swim out to deeper water.

Sawfish change homes as they grow. Tiny pups stay in the shallowest water at the edges of mangrove forests, often less than a meter deep, where large predators cannot easily reach them.

When they are about 2 meters long, they start moving out into deeper bays, along beaches and to reefs. Water temperature, depth, saltiness and the plants along the shore all affect where a sawfish chooses to be.

Habitat use shifts with size. NOAA Fisheries reports that juveniles spend their first two to three years in estuaries (shallow bays, lagoons and rivers), that sawfish under about 2 meters keep to water under about a meter deep beside mangrove shorelines, where they are protected from large predators, and that they begin moving to coastal habitats at about 7 feet.

Larger juveniles and adults use estuaries, beaches and deep-water reefs. Temperature, depth, shoreline vegetation and salinity all shape habitat choice, and sawfish generally stay in water warmer than about 64 °F (18 °C). Because females return to the same nurseries, protecting those few sites matters for the whole population.

Sawfish are very rare now.

People are protecting the mangroves where baby sawfish grow. In Florida, there are rules to keep sawfish safe.

The smalltooth sawfish is Critically Endangered. Its saw gets tangled easily in fishing nets, many were caught, and the mangroves and shallow shores where pups grow up have been built on.

There is hope. International trade in all sawfish is now banned, and in the United States the species has been protected since 2003. In 2022 the IUCN found that sawfish numbers off Florida, in parts of Mexico and in the Bahamas were stable or growing. Fishers who catch one by accident can release it safely.

The IUCN assessed the species as Critically Endangered A2cd (March 2022), inferring a reduction of more than 80 percent over three generations (59 years) from overexploitation, habitat degradation and range contraction. Sawfish fins were once among the most valuable in the shark fin trade; all sawfishes have been on CITES Appendix I since 2007 and 2013, but illegal trade in rostra, fins and meat continues.

The smalltooth sawfish has been listed as Endangered under the US Endangered Species Act since 2003, and Florida's 1995 net ban reduced bycatch. NOAA Fisheries has designated critical habitat for juveniles and issues safe-release guidance. Other protections include CMS Appendices I and II (2014), the Cartagena Convention's SPAW Protocol and a Mediterranean retention ban (2012). The IUCN notes that populations are stable or increasing only in the United States, parts of Mexico and the Bahamas.