Critically endangered longcomb sawfish caught at Pak-Iran border

Extremely rare and critically endangered longcomp sawfish was caught by a fisherman near the Pakistan-Iran border on Saturday, October 29, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) officials on Monday said, adding that the species, scientifically known as Pristis zijsron, is considered to be extremely rare and faces the threat of extinction.

Three species of sawfish — knifetooth (Anoxypristis cuspidatus), large tooth (Pristis pristis) and largecomb (Pristis zijsron), are reported in Pakistan. However, due to overfishing and habitat degradation, the population of sawfish has decreased substantially and they are now considered to be nearly extinct at the local level.

In the past 10 years, only three authentic records of their occurrence in Pakistan have been recorded. The last authentic record of occurrence of this species was reported on May 30, 2013, when a large Longcomb Sawfish was caught by fishermen at the Khajar Creek.

There used to be a large fishery of sawfish in Pakistan before 1970s, however, their population decreased by the 1980s because of high mortality in fishing gears. Sawfish have a long life, slow growth, late maturity, and low fecundity; making them extremely vulnerable to any changes that may reduce their population.

Sawfish rostrums (saws) can easily become entangled in nets and other fishing gear, making them vulnerable targets of overfishing. As the name suggests, they are characterised by a long, narrow, flattened rostrum, or nose extension, lined with sharp transverse teeth resembling a saw.

Tge WWF-Pakistan has initiated a programme to record any authentic record of such endangered sawfish in the country. On September 11, 2009, a 1.4-metre-long Pristis pristis landed at the Gwadar Fish Harbour.

In June 2013, a large specimen of sawfish was caught at the Khajar Creek near the mouth of the River Indus. Another largetooth sawfish was landed at the Karachi fish harbour on May 11, 2015. On January 18, 2016, another Pristis pristis was entangled in a fishing net near Surbandar, Balochistan. The last sighting is the fourth authentic record of this species occurring in Pakistan in recent years.

Hearing about the incidence, Ghulam Nabi, a senior fisherman from Jiwani and WWF-Pakistan team member, was dispatched to the location and collected necessary information about the sawfish. According to the fisherman, the fish was caught in a bottomset gillnet deployed for catching demersal fishes at the border between Pakistan and Iran.

According to fishermen, the sawfish was an extremely rare occurrence and it was caught after about 30 years in the area. At one time, sawfish dominated among shark species but due to the introduction of motorised fishing vessels and nylon net, their population started to dwindle.

Muhammad Moazzam Khan, WWF-Pakistan marine fisheries technical adviser, said that in the past, the main areas of sawfish fishing in Pakistan were Miani Hor (Sonmiani), Kalmat Khor, Jiwani, Gwadar, Pakistan-Iranian border (Gwater Bay), and the fish was reported all along the Indus Delta, especially the Khajar Creek.

The WWF-Pakistan has initiated a study on historical data on sawfish in Pakistan through interviews of retired fishermen. This survey has been carried out in Karachi, Sonmiani, Gwadar, Jiwani, Ibrahim Hyderi and other coastal areas.

The information collected so far reveals that sawfish fisheries were flourishing about 40 years back but the species became locally extinct by the 1980s. The sawfish were so abundant that in some coastal villages, fishermen used their saws as boundary posts of their houses. Because of the decline in sawfish populations worldwide, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed all the sawfish species as ‘critically endangered’.