Abstract
Fishers’ ecological knowledge of sawfishes in the Sepik and Ramu rivers, northern Papua New Guinea
Highlights
Sawfishes are considered the most endangered family of elasmobranchs globally (Dulvy et al 2014, 2016)
The first published record of sawfish anywhere in PN G waters came from the Crane Pacific Expedition, when the largetooth sawfish Pristis pristis was recorded in the Sepik River in 1929 (Herre 1936)
The recent study by White et al (2017) documented the continued presence of all 4 species of sawfish known to occur in the Indo-Pacific region — largetooth sawfish, green sawfish P. zijsron, dwarf sawfish P. clavata, and narrow sawfish Anoxypristis cuspidata — at a single site in southern Papua New Guinea (PNG). These findings suggest that PN G may be an important hotspot and potential refuge for sawfishes in the Indo-Pacific
Summary
Sawfishes are considered the most endangered family of elasmobranchs globally (Dulvy et al 2014, 2016). Of the 5 extant species of sawfish, 4 exist in Australian waters, and northern Australia is considered to be a stronghold for all 4 species (Peverell 2005, White & Kyne 2010, Phillips et al 2011); the distribution and status of sawfishes in the rest of the Indo-Pacific is poorly understood. The first published record of sawfish anywhere in PN G waters came from the Crane Pacific Expedition, when the largetooth sawfish Pristis pristis (as P. perotteti) was recorded in the Sepik River in 1929 (Herre 1936). At that time, Herre (1936) reported sawfish as being common, but by the 1980s, they were considered rare in the Sepik River (Coates 1987). Sawfishes were not recorded in survey catches (the effort of this survey is not known), but rostra were frequently observed in many villages (Coates 1983)
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