Latest Sawfish Stories

CITES plenary today accepted Committee recommendations to list five species of highly traded sharks under the CITES Appendices, along with those for the listing of both manta rays and one species of sawfish. Japan, backed by Gambia and India, unsuccessfully challenged the Committee decision to list the oceanic whitetip shark, while Grenada and China failed in an attempt to reopen debate on listing three hammerhead species. Colombia, Senegal, Mexico and others took the floor to defend...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Seven species of vulnerable sharks and manta rays have now been submitted by 35 countries for consideration for protection next year under an international treaty concerned with regulating wildlife trade. Governments met the deadline today and formally submitted their proposals for the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in March 2013. The recommendations include...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online At the IUCN's World Conservation Congress in Jeju, Korea, this week, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and over 35 other government agencies and NGO (non-governmental organizations) partners urged the world's governments to take urgent steps to save sharks and rays from the relentless pressure of overfishing for international trade. The WCS-led consortium is specifically advocating for the listing of sharks and rays under the...

IUCN Specialist Group issues Red List Assessments for North & Central American species VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG) is releasing the first compilation of status assessments for nearly 300 sharks, rays, and chimaeras (chondrichthyan fishes) found in North American, Central American, and Caribbean waters conducted using on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species criteria. The report shows that 13.5%...

[ Watch the Video ] A team of researchers led by Barbara Wueringer of the University of Queensland, Australia have been studying the feeding habits of the freshwater-dwelling sawfish Pristis microdon. The researchers found that when the sawfish feeds, it uses electrosensors in its long snout to detect the location of the prey in the water. The sawfish swipes, several times per second, at its prey with a side to side motion with enough force to saw the fish in half. The sawfish would...

U.S. government will grant strong protection for rare shark-like ray WASHINGTON, July 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Shark Advocates International is applauding the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) decision to list largetooth sawfish (Pristisperotteti) under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). Largetooth sawfish occur in coastal waters and rivers in Mexico, Central and South America, as well as West Africa. In the U.S., the species has been found in the Gulf of Mexico,...

The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico threatens the existence of a critically endangered sawfish and its relative that recently has been proposed to join it as the only two marine fish in United States waters to receive such federal protection, says a University of Florida researcher.The largetooth sawfish, a popular curio item known for its sawlike snout, was proposed as a federally endangered species on May 7, less than three weeks after massive amounts of oil started gushing into Gulf...

The University of Florida, keeper of the world's shark attack records, is also now overseeing a national records collection for another toothy marine predator: the sawfish.Distinguished by a long rostrum or "saw" that makes it a popular curio item and gives it its name, the sawfish has become a historical and cultural icon that is rapidly disappearing, said George Burgess, a UF ichthyologist and curator of both the International Shark Attack File and the newly expanded National Sawfish...

MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaragua banned freshwater fishing of bull sharks and sawfish on Tuesday because of alarming population declines, and said it wants neighboring Costa Rica to impose a similar prohibition.Overfishing in the San Juan River that forms much of the border with Costa Rica has reduced the number of both marine animals to dangerously low levels, Nicaraguan agriculture officials said.The Nicaraguan ban on harvesting of the two types of fish, which can survive in both salt and...