Sawfish Encounter

[Onshore]

Therese and I were walking over Melbourne Causeway last night on the way beachside to watch the shuttle launch. The sun was low in the sky and it was very clear. As we walked out over the western side of the Indian River Lagoon, we stopped and looked down to the sandy bottom over 4'-5' of water. We have seen numbers of Manatees and Dolphins here and make it a habit to look down aproximately 40' to the water. Both fish were 4' to 5' in length but, that's hard to estimate. They may have been longer, as their saw is nearly as long as their bodies. They looked exactily as pictured below in the picture from the museum website.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/STSawfish/sawfish_perrine.JPG

We were amazed as, slowly swimming up-current to the North were a pair of Sawfish. Until their numbers declined about 100 years ago; the IRL was home to huge numbers of these unique fish. A terror in a fishing net; they were loathed and often killed by fishermen in the area. Today, they are very rare here with most of the US population concentrated south of Miami in Florida Bay. Here's a picture, above and a link to the Florida Museum of Natural History's web site for more information below.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/STsawfish/STSawfish.html

By the way, the Shuttle launch was spectacular. Sky so clear that you could see the shuttle and boosters before and after seperation with the setting sun lighting them a bright gold.

[lemaymiami]

The 'Glades are the saws' home place, but they've been coming back and expanding their ranges since the net ban... No sawfish survives an encounter with a net, now that the inshore netting has been gone a few years I'm hearing of more and more up the east and west coast. Neat fish.