Over the past three years, state and federal wildlife officials have been forced to make extraordinary decisions to save Florida’s endangered wildlife.
In 2021, wildlife experts approved the first-ever feeding trial for starving manatees. Biologists feed sea cows lettuce because their main food source, seagrass, lacks human-caused pollution.
Last year, faced with perhaps the most widespread coral bleaching crisis in Florida history, scientists raced to save corals from searing ocean temperatures. The mass evacuation of the coral was the first of its kind.
The latest decision – to save a species on the brink – begins next week in the Florida Keys. This may be the most complex rescue operation to date.
Reports of strange fish rotations and unusual rotations began in November. It started with the erratic pinfish, a popular type of bait used by fishermen on both the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. But in January, biologists had their first confirmed report of a dead smalltooth sawfish, the first marine fish to gain federal protections in 2003. Videos emerged of the sawfish spinning in circles across the southern islands of Florida, an abnormal behavior that scientists believe is a sign of distress. .
As sawfish deaths rise north of two dozen and more than 100 are affected, an emergency federal effort to track and save the diseased sawfish will begin next week. A hotline designed to log sightings rings daily in the Keys. Now, scientists will try to find problem fish, catch them and take them to one of at least three facilities for recovery.
The effort will be led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and will include Florida’s state wildlife agency.
“People do these rescues for turtles, dolphins and manatees all the time. But this has never been done for a 14-foot sawfish before,” said Tonya Wiley, Smalltooth Sawfish Recovery team leader. Team and director of Palmetto-based Havenworth Coastal Conservation. “We’re blazing a trail here.”
Wiley has spent two decades researching sawfish in Tampa Bay and beyond. He had never seen anything like this.
“This is definitely the most devastating single event for sawfish in my 23 years of studying them,” he said.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/6Q4QSAUQF5D67OEMJ6D7NLP2T4.jpg "Biologists will launch a first-of-its-kind rescue mission in the Florida Keys to rescue sick and endangered smalltooth sawfish. Sawfish, like the one tagged here by state researchers in 2008, were the first marine fish species to be given federal protections in 2003.")
As of Thursday, the die-off has killed 28 endangered sawfish and responders have logged more than 360 reports to the fish kill hotline, according to the latest data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The cause of death is a mystery. Necropsies of state animals to date have shown no signs of pathogens or bacteria, though sawfish tissue continues to be examined. The water’s oxygen levels, its salt content and temperature are currently not suspected to be the cause, either. And wildlife experts haven’t found any toxins produced by red tide blooms.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/UD4IDQTGHFFUZM43GMJ7RO2ZFE.JPG "Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines")
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State wildlife biologists sent 52 fish and a dozen sawfish samples to the University of South Alabama for further study.
“It’s frustrating, not knowing what we can do to help the situation,” said Adam Brame, the sawfish recovery coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Services. Brame led the first-of-its-kind rescue operation in the Keys. “It’s an unprecedented event, and to some degree, it’s an unprecedented response.”
Tracking sick mammals like whales and dolphins comes with a built-in clue: the animals need to come up for air. But sawfish have gills. No surfing required. That makes detecting and relocating them especially tricky, and it may not be as simple as taking a sick sawfish to a boat and relocating it, Brame said.
Depending on the situation, researchers may need to put the animals in a sling, or perhaps pull them into a vessel, Brame said. Many details are still being worked out, and each recovery depends largely on the location of the animals, conditions and other factors.
Another big question mark right now is funding. Wiley’s role in the operation is to lock up money so that responders can eat, sleep and travel in the Keys during their recovery efforts. The dream number for the operation is, right now, around $250,000, he said.
In Sarasota, the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium is poised as one of three facilities to take in diseased wild-caught sawfish. The length of stay for sawfish in Mote and other rehabs depends on how sick each fish is. The other two facilities that can house sawfish are Ripley’s Aquariums and Marathon-based Dynasty Marine Associates, Inc.
“We are eager to help in the effort to help this endangered species, and we will do everything we can to put the welfare of the sawfish first,” said Kathryn Flowers, Mote’s lead scientist for the sawfish initiative. “Attempts to solve this mystery call for strong cooperation.”
If you want to help with sawfish research or rescue efforts, you can donate to the cause by visiting https://www.sawfishrecovery.org/.
To report a sawfish sighting, email [email protected] or call 844-472-9347 (1-844-4SAWFISH).
