SAWFISH: The world’s most endangered marine fish

FAST FACTS: SOUTHERN & EASTERN AFRICA

Species:

• Southern and Eastern Africa (South Africa to Somalia) was once home to populations of two of the world’s five sawfish species: Green and Largetooth Sawfish
  

Status:

• Sawfishes were previously common along the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) coast of South Africa. 
• The St. Lucia estuary system was regarded as a particularly important habitat and breeding area. Sawfishes disappeared due to a combination of a targeted recreational fishery and as a result of reduced water flows due to agriculture and industry
• Shark nets off the KZN coast caught 30 sawfish in the 1980s, three in the 1990s, and none since
• The last recorded KZN capture of any sawfish (not identified to species level) was in 1999
• Sawfish are now considered to be locally extinct in South Africa
• Sawfishes are now at very best rare in the southern Mozambique
• Largetooth Sawfish was once common in the Zambezi River in Mozambique, although no contemporary sightings have been documented
• Interviews with long-time fishers from Zanzibar found that sawfishes were regularly caught earlier in these fisher’s careers (up to 40 years ago) but catches are now very rare (and sawfishes may be locally exist in some areas)
• No recent sawfish sightings have been documented from Kenya
• Largetooth Sawfish used to penetrate as far inland as Zimbabwe in large rivers such as the Zambezi
• Healthy populations of Largetooth Sawfish were present in several western Madagascan rivers in 2001
• Sawfishes were once commonly caught in coastal shark fisheries in northwestern Madagascar, but had become rare as a consequence of intensive netting across estuaries

Biology:

• All sawfishes are marine species, but Largetooth Sawfish also spend part of their lives in rivers
• Rivers are an important nursery areas for Largetooth Sawfish
• Green Sawfish can live for more than 50 years and Largetooth Sawfish for at least 44 years

Threats:

• Sawfishes are still taken as a bycatch of artisanal and commercial fisheries in Eastern Africa
• Fisheries in Eastern Africa are generally unmanaged and unregulated
• Sawfish fins are amongst the most preferred for shark fin soup in Asia; one set can sell for close to USD$4000
• Dried rostra were regularly displayed for sale as curios in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar in the 1990s, demonstrating that they are retained when caught
• Sawfishes (probably referring to Green Sawfish) have been listed as a major commercial species within coastal waters of Somalia
• Both Largetooth and Green Sawfish are caught as bycatch of shark gill-netting activities in Somalia
• The introduction of Tilapia into Lake Kinkony, a freshwater lake connected to the sea in northwestern Madagascar, resulted in the disappearance of weed beds and subsequent displacement of fish fauna including sawfishes

Opportunities:

• Surveys of the larger river systems and fisher interviews are necessary to confirm the persistence of sawfishes outside the Quirimbas area of Mozambique, where they are likely to persist
• Several countries in eastern Africa have been identified as priority countries, those that need urgent basic legal protection for sawfish populations: Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar
• Surveys are required in Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia to evaluate the status of sawfishes there