Swordfish

Swordfish eat fish and squid.

They swing their long nose to hit a fish. Then they gulp it down.

Swordfish eat many kinds of fish and squid. NOAA describes how a swordfish catches prey: it slashes its bill back and forth, stunning or injuring fish and squid, and then eats them.

They hunt both near the surface and deep down. Big prey found in their stomachs often has slash marks, while small prey is swallowed whole.

Swordfish are opportunistic predators of pelagic fishes and cephalopods; at depth they also take demersal fishes (Florida Museum). Off the Bay of Biscay, fishes were found in 95 percent of 86 stomachs and cephalopods in 76 percent, with lanternfishes and squids prominent (IUCN).

The bill is used in feeding: squids and cuttlefishes from stomachs often show slashes, and a study found most large prey had been slashed while small items were eaten whole (Florida Museum). As top predators, large swordfish may accumulate mercury in their flesh (IUCN). Larvae eat zooplankton, and juveniles eat squid, fishes and crustaceans.

Swordfish usually swim alone.

They travel very far across the ocean, from warm water to cool water and back.

Swordfish usually live alone, pairing up only to spawn. They travel huge distances: NOAA says North Atlantic swordfish migrate thousands of miles each year, along the coasts of the United States and Canada and along Africa and Europe.

A swordfish off Massachusetts one week could be off Canada the next. Grown-up swordfish have few enemies, but sharks and big fish sometimes eat young ones, and killer whales may eat adults.

Swordfish are solitary outside spawning, when males and females appear to pair; in the Mediterranean, pairs show a 'circle-S' swimming pattern at surface temperatures of 24 °C or more (IUCN). North Atlantic fish migrate thousands of miles along the North American and European-African coasts (NOAA).

The Florida Museum lists killer whales as predators of adults, and sharks, marlins, sailfish, yellowfin tuna and dolphinfish as predators of young swordfish. It also records 49 species of parasites, and lamprey scratch marks that suggest swordfish rid themselves of lampreys.

People catch swordfish for food.

In some oceans there are fewer swordfish than before. Countries set rules about how many can be caught.

Swordfish are an important food fish, and people catch them in every ocean. The IUCN lists the swordfish as Near Threatened, because worldwide their numbers fell by an estimated 22 percent or more between the mid-1990s and 2015.

The story is different in each ocean. In the North Atlantic, countries set yearly catch limits, catches have stayed below them for years, and the swordfish there are doing well. In the South Atlantic and the Mediterranean, there are still too few.

The IUCN assessed Xiphias gladius as Near Threatened (A2bd; assessed May 2021, published 2022; LC in 2011), estimating a global decline of at least 22 percent over three generations (about 1994 to 2015), with overfishing in the Mediterranean and South Atlantic stocks.

ICCAT's 2025 executive summaries (2022 Atlantic assessments, status for 2020) find the North Atlantic stock not overfished and not subject to overfishing, with a 2025 to 2027 catch limit of 14,769 tonnes; the South Atlantic stock overfished and subject to overfishing; and the Mediterranean stock (2020 assessment) overfished, though overfishing was not occurring in 2018. NOAA likewise reports North Atlantic swordfish not overfished and not subject to overfishing (2022 assessment).