ISLAMORADA, Fla. – What started as a normal afternoon on the water became a memorable encounter for passengers on the MyKeys Tours of Islamorada on Friday.
“As we were going through the cut, we saw the sawfish kind of floundering around in the flats,” Michael Rolph, the captain and founder of MyKeys Tours, told Local 10 News.
The Coast Guard veteran quickly grabbed his phone and recorded the flailing sawfish.
“I think it’s stuck,” a passenger can be heard saying on the video.
For over two decades, the smalltooth sawfish has been listed on the register for federal endangered species. Today, all five sawfish species are considered to be endangered, disappearing from the world’s oceans. The smalltooth sawfish can only be found in the waters of Florida and the Bahamas.
“The guestimate based on the number of juveniles is that there’s probably somewhere between maybe 500, and maybe 1000 large females that are actually contributing to the population,” Dean Grubbs, a Florida State University professor and sawfish expert, said.
Grubbs is the associate director of research and a professor at FSU’s Coastal Marine Laboratory.
“I’ve been studying sawfish in Florida for about 15 years,” he told Local 10 Anchor and Environmental Advocate Louis Aguirre.
Typically, just seeing a sawfish in the wild is a rare occurrence that would spur headlines on its own. That’s because the animal is benthic — a bottom-dweller.
So why are so many new sightings happening on the surface? That’s just one of the mysteries scientists like Grubbs are trying to solve.
“The last I’ve heard, and I know well over 70 animals that have been reported and seen, as you know, showing the signs of distress,” Grubbs said. “I’ve seen video of them just rushing right up onto the beach…there’s no reason they should be doing that.”
Distress is a concern, but it’s the deaths that are even more troublesome.
As of Wednesday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told Local 10 News that there have now been 27 confirmed sawfish deaths in just the first three months of 2024. But Grubbs fears that number could be higher.
“Those are the ones that have been recovered and that we know died, undoubtedly there are more that died that no one ever saw,” he explained.
“There has been a series of smalltooth sawfish deaths in the Lower Keys,” FWC said in their statement to Local 10.
While at this point the deaths seem to be concentrated in the Lower Florida Keys, the distressed sawfish sightings have now stretched more than 200 miles north to the Boynton Beach inlet.
“Look at that…look at the size of that,” one woman can be heard saying in a video recorded by “Captain Nate” of Angle Drop Charters.
“You don’t see that often,” he said as he filmed the zig-zagging animal last week.
“Whatever is causing this, if it’s spreading north, that would be a major concern, but we don’t really have confirmation of that yet,” Dr. Grubbs said.
The bizarre behavior is not limited to the sawfish. Technical diver and Little Torch Key Resident Gregg Furstenworth has been chronicling the changing behaviors of fish in the Lower Keys since February of last year.
What started with one video of spinning pinfish has escalated to dozens of videos, tirelessly documenting the event as a citizen scientist.
“Every single night, I’ve been going out spending between four to six hours, sometimes till 530 in the morning,” Furstenberg said.
To date, he’s logged at least 48 different species of fish spinning and behaving erratically.
“I’m trying to get people to see that there is a very serious problem that we all need to deal with,” he explained. “And if we don’t deal with it, it’s going to be an even larger problem, because it’s already gone too far, you know, up and down the keys.”
Scientists are still trying to identify what’s causing these weird events in the waters and if they are related.
So far water testing has shown elevated levels of Gambierdiscus, a dinoflagellate that lives attached to seaweeds on the bottom. Some forms can be toxic to humans if consumed and can cause neurological responses in marine life.
It’s a critical discovery, but it’s not the smoking gun.
And just Wednesday, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection posted a photo and update explaining the latest results of their water quality testing. “Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, nutrients, chlorophyll and other chemicals were either not detected or were observed below normal limits,” the post explained.
Still amid the uncertainty and the heartbreak, there are also signs of new life. Photographer Iris Moore was able to snap a photo of a baby sawfish swimming along the shoreline of Islamorada as she was shooting bridal portraits over the weekend.
Researchers remain hopeful that they can figure this out before it’s too late. As the sawfish go, so does the ecosystem of our oceans.
“So these are top predators in the system, they’re fish eaters,” Dr. Grubbs explained. “In a lot of ways, the health of the sawfish population also is related to and it may even dictate the health of the overall marine environment.”
It is important to note that there have been no reported impacts to human health as a result of this environmental event.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Sawfish: Report all healthy, sick, injured or dead sawfish to FWC’s Sawfish Hotline at 844-472-9347 or via email at Sawfish@myfwc.com with the date, time and location of the encounter, estimated length, water depth and any other relevant details.
Fish concerns: If you see abnormal fish behavior, fish disease, and fish kills, submit a report to FWC’s Fish Kill Hotline either through the web form MyFWC.com/ReportFishKill or by phone 800-636-0511.