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Unraveling the Mystery: Why Sawfish Were Spinning and Dying in Florida · How To Protect The Ocean

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  I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is scientists have
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  figured out what was going on with those sawfish that
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  were spinning around in Florida in the water earlier this summer and dying.
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  They figured it out, they kind of know what it is, but they also don't
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  know what the cause of it was, like in terms of why this actually
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  happened. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect
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  the Ocean podcast, so stay tuned and let's start the show. Hey,
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I
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  am your host, Andrew Lewin. This is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you
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  can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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  taking action. And I have to tell you, it's Monday. It's
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  the first day of the week. Well, I guess technically the second day of the week. But I
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  was up north in at a cottage with some friends. We
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  played some golf. We were able to play some ping pong and
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  just kind of catch up with a lot of friends that I haven't seen in a long time. It
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  was the most beautiful weekend I've seen up
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  in where I was in North Bay. It was 28 degrees, 26, 27, 28 degrees.
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  It was absolutely gorgeous. Kind of scary though in September up
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  north where you actually have this type of weather, this warm weather.
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  Not something we want in the long term but it was kind of nice to enjoy I
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  guess. I don't really know. I digress. Today
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  we're going to be talking about something that I think is really interesting. It's we
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  know what was causing the sawfish and
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  other fish to die and what was that behavior where
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  sawfish were actually spinning around in circles and then dying. We
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  know what caused it. We don't know how it
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  happened, but we know what caused it or the
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  complex that caused it. And we're going to talk about that today, which
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  I think is really, really important. First of all, I wanna just tell you
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  in the comments or in the description, wherever you are, there's
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  gonna be a link and you get to check it out and I'll give you updates
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  on what it looks like and what happens very, very, very soon. OK, so
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  when it comes out. So that's it. So let's get into the show because
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  I'm so excited. This is going to be something that we've been waiting to
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  hear about for quite some time. There was a very
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  disturbing behavior in the summer where these sawfish and
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  other fish were like spinning around in circles and then just dying. It was very,
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  very weird. Sawfish are part of the endangered species list, and
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  they're critical. There are two populations, one in the Bahamas, one
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  in the US, this population anyway, this species. you
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  know, the bigger population is in the US, but it's still a
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  problem, and it's something that we need to figure out to
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  protect them. A lot of people are doing some great work in
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  Florida, as well as other places, to be able to protect them, so
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  keep an eye out for that. But this story came
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  off of National Geographic, which is really great to see that
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  they're updating us on this. I've been looking for this for quite some time. And
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  so over the summer, actually, they said in, I
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  think it was in, November 2023? Maybe it was earlier than
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  that. There was this whirling
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  in circles, like a phenomenon of this whirling in circles, usually until
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  they died. Scientists later recorded the
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  phenomenon in more than 80 different species, including parrotfish, bull sharks,
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  and Goliath grouper. So this affected a lot of
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  fish. there was an investigation water samples
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  were taken where these fish were dead uh there were
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  a lot of samples analyzed there were fish that were analyzed and
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  the the uh results were really quite
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  quite interesting uh it was more than so What
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  they were worried about is like, what was causing it? They thought it was a toxin. Where
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  was this toxin? Where was it coming from? Where was it going? And
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  how was it going into, you know, how was it being absorbed? And
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  where was it actually affecting these fish? So
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  it says, after testing hundreds of water and fish samples, the
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  experts concluded the symptomatic fish
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  died from combined exposure of multiple toxins, possibly
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  originating from multiple species of dinoflagellates. It's a type of macroalgae, essentially,
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  so microscopic algae, so like a phytoplankton. Under
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  normal conditions, these dinoflagellates in question live on seagrass
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  or larger algae on the seafloor, rather
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  than a free-floating water column. But some as yet unknown
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  driver, possibly heat, maybe a storm, even
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  a mix of events, cause the dinoflagellates to leave their hosts
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  and move upward into the water column. And according
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  to Allison Roberts, who's a marine scientist who studies harmful algal
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  blooms at the University of Southern Alabama Stokes School of Marine and
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  Environmental Sciences and the Dolphin Island Sea Lab, said,
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  it's just really rare. We've never really seen
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  that. This is what we have to work out in terms of what's
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  happening here, what's happening in general. wasn't
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  red tide we know that it wasn't red tide which is a bloom of
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  toxic dinoflagellates and dissolved oxygen salinity and ph and temperatures
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  were all within normal ranges and not suspected to
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  be that cause the initial breakthrough came from
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  michael parsons a marine ecologist who studies algal blooms at florida gulf
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  coast university revealed that the levels of water samples showed
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  higher than normal levels of the type of seafloor-dwelling dinoflagellates
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  in the genus Gambierdiscus. Gambiodiscus
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  is the genus name. Now this algae
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  produces a neurotoxin called ciguatoxin. And
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  so people who eat seafood that are infected with ciguatoxin or the neurotoxin
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  experience like ciguatera, which is like a condition that causes vomiting, nausea,
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  neurological symptoms, so not great.
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  So that was the biggest lead that Robertson said
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  they were going with because of the human health implications. They were worried that people
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  were eating fish that had the ciguatera and they didn't want
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  them to be sick. But there were no cases that they really saw, I think, that
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  had this. So they didn't find many toxins
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  in the muscles of the symptomatic fish. But their livers,
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  which is the organ responsible for filtering out the impurities, were chock
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  full of toxins ranging from ciguatoxin to a variety of
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  toxins produced by dinoflagellates other than
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  the Gambier discus genus that I just mentioned. So in
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  terms of the crux of it, it was not just ciguatoxin alone. based
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  on the evidence that they've seen, but it's something that
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  could be a combination of these neurotoxins that
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  would cause these fish
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  to display such a behavior. Now, some algae produce multiple
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  toxins, So it's not necessarily a one-to-one relationship.
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  Now, so the sawfish were hit hard, and the thinking around
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  this was sawfish don't necessarily hang around in
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  the water column. They hang around on the bottom. If you actually look at a sawfish, it's
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  a flat shark, what we call. So it looks like a
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  bit of a morph between a ray and a shark. You
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  know, a buddy of mine and co-host of the Beyond Jaws podcast calls
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  these guys, Dr. David Ebert, calls these
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  guys shark rays, or flat sharks, is
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  what they call them, flat sharks. So essentially what they do, these flat sharks lie on
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  the bottom of the ocean, and they align the sea floor, where
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  these dinoflagellates, the ciguatoxin dinoflagellates kind of hang out,
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  the Gambier discus. And so when they actually
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  surf, like they swim along the
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  bottom of the ocean, and they use that rostrum,
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  that big saw-like sort of appendage,
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  and they start to sift through the bottom. Now that could have disturbed that
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  algae that was in that area and then it got through the
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  gills as well as into the liver. That's where the sawfish had
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  these dinoflagellate and the toxin in.
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  So, you know, these are 16 foot long sawfish. They
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  use the saw to hunt, catching other fish and crabs and more. You
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  know, it made sense that this dinoflagellate that
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  it hits on the bottom, stays on the bottom, is getting disturbed. It kind
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  of floats up a little bit and it gets into the gills and it gets into
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  the liver. And that's why we probably saw, you know, high concentration of
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  toxin-laden water that passed through the sawfish gills, causing
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  the neurological impacts that we saw where they were spinning in circles. So
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  concerned about the fish's future, in spring 2024, for
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  the first time in US history, scientists launched an emergency effort to rescue critically
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  endangered sawfish impacted by the spinning phenomenon. On
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  April 5th, they successfully rescued a distressed sawfish and
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  began rehabilitation effort in Mote Marine Laboratory, an aquarium in
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  Sarasota. However, the animal did not survive. But
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  reports of ailing sawfish then declined, and
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  so we started to see less and less cases. But
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  we're hoping that we'll be more prepared when we start to see these cases again. And
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  because we know that it's multiple toxins, maybe we can know
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  how to treat it better when they fix it, when they see it
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  next time, if they see it next time. Now, there could be
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  a lot of things that cause this, and I mentioned them before. It could have been heat, it
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  could have been a storm, it could have just been disturbance in an area and there
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  was a lot of dinoflagellates for that area. some of
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  the water samples or many of the water samples didn't display any heightened
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  dinoflagellates or heightened algae in that in the in
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  the samples doesn't necessarily mean that's the case though so there still needs
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  to be more research and more investigation that for this
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  phenomenon and for what happened but This is
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  giving us a little bit more of an answer
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  of what happened to these fish and what could happen in
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  the future if we're not careful. Now, the biggest thing right now
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  is to find out what happened, piece those items together, find
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  out what the cause of it was and how these dinoflagellates got
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  into these fish, right? And these a fish, where are
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  they? Were they all in one area? Was it all over the place? How
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  is the bottom disturbed if that's what the case was
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  for the sawfish? And a lot of questions and a lot of
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  answers. I'm sure it'd be great graduate work or a great research
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  study to happen in the future. And I'm sure that's going on right now. So we
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  have a lot of people that are involved in this, which is great. I'll
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  find out if I can get more of an update. I'm working on getting an
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  interview with Michael Parsons who did a lot of the analysis. So
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  we'll see what we can do. Maybe we can get Alison Robertson on the show as well. But
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  that's it for today's episode. I hope you got some answers. I'd love to hear your
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  comments. You can comment on Spotify. You
• 11:51
  can comment on YouTube, because this episode
• 11:55
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  to that. Anyway, that's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to
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  this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have