A rare sawfish dying again in the waters of South Florida

Endangered eda has died again in Florida waters, causing fear that the months-long deaths that killed more than 50 saws last year could be attacked again.

As of Monday, six saws had died this winter, and a total of 22 reports showed signs of distress and spinning underwater, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee confirmed by WLRN. Biologists were able to perform necrops on five.

Two dead fish were tagged while healthy to track movements, including a 13-foot woman found near a flamingo in Everglades National Park.

The big saw was tagged from Cedarkey in 2023 by Florida State University researcher Dean Grubbs, which led to the cutting edge north where saws were tagged, he said. At the time, scientists hoped it could have recovered after the fish was nearly wiped out, and was added to the Endangered Species Species List in 2003.

This winter’s death came almost nine months after the perplexed death, calming dozens of other species. Last year, 54 people were confirmed dead, and hundreds more were reported to have been ill or died during a widespread death that lasted nearly six months. The sick saw first appeared in the key below a few months after anglers and sailors began to find dozens of other species that exhibit the same strange rotational behavior. The dead saw was eventually found miles away with the top key.

After months of quiet, a dead saw was discovered in late December, and the second time was discovered on New Year’s Eve. The remaining four appeared this year.

Scientists suspect that algae, which live on the toxic bottom, are making fish sick, but they continue to investigate what makes the algae fatal to saws.

Algae produce cigar toxins like the cigatora-producing type, and are usually clinging to sea grass or clinging to sea grass. The event, a burnt heatwave sweeping beyond the key during the summer of 2023, may have altered the dynamics of the ecosystem to spread the algae and become more harmful, scientists say.

Sawfish spends much of their lives on the seabed and have gills on the bottom, so scientists suspect they are more susceptible to being affected. Other fish species that showed signs of distress were able to recover. Scientists at the University of Southern Alabama who investigated hundreds of these species have discovered multiple toxins in the liver, making it difficult to isolate the cigar toxins found in the sawfish as a cause

Some scientists suspect a long two-month heat wave, which caused widespread coral bleaching, exacerbated by climate-rich rising temperatures, and caused events by changing the composition and power balance of the algal community in which Sawfish lives.

This story was originally published by WLRN Public Media and was shared in collaboration with the Martinez Room Initiative, founded by the Florida Climate Reporting Network, the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.