A Future for a Forgotten Predator: An Assessment of International Legal Frameworks for Protection and Recovery of the Caribbean Sawfishes

Sawfishes are the world’s most endangered marine fish. These shark-looking rays were once common in tropical and subtropical coastal waters across the globe and are now extinct in large portions of their range. Sawfishes were first assessed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation Nature (IUCN) in 1996. Today, both species of sawfish present in the Caribbean are classified as critically endangered or facing “an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.” Only 2.4 percent of chondrichthyans, a class that includes more than one thousand species of sharks, rays, skates, and chimaeras, have been placed in this category. Even if all external sources of mortality are eliminated, it will take anywhere from “several decades” to over 100 years for the Caribbean sawfishes to recover. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, sawfishes’ perilous status became recognized in national and international law. In 2003, it “won the dubious distinction of being the first animal that can spend its entire life in the ocean” to be listed under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA).