Last weekend a Florida man caught a fish he’ll be bragging about for a very, very long time. It wasn’t a tuna, or a salmon, or whatever fish is native to the Everglades, it was a sawfish!
The lucky fisherman was out with his friends enjoying a full day fishing when they saw what they thought was a 9-foot shark. Upon futher examination and with a whole lot of muscle, they pulled a 17-foot sawfish out of the water. Imagine their shock when they realized they caught a creature one foot larger than their 16-foot boat!
Upon inspection, they noticed that the ancient fish was tangled in an old rope. Being good Samaritans, they carefully removed the rope and released the fish back into the Florida waters. Sawfish, now endangered, used to be fairly common in the area but they have since become increasingly rare due to overfishing. The sawfish species is nearly 56-million years old and though they are very rare, reports of fishermen catching them come up a few times a year.
Personally, I’m glad to hear that this Florida fishermen freed and released this uncommon and beautiful creature. One of the reasons they are so endangered is that fishermen would often catch them, remove their sawblade snouts and mount the saws as a trophy. That wasn’t the case here and with people like this fisherman and his friends, we’ll have these really cool creatures around for at least a little longer.