Smalltooth sawfish
Smalltooth sawfish are extremely vulnerable to overexploitation because of their propensity for entanglement in nets, their restricted habitat, and low rate of population growth. The species is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List. Historically it was found in 47 countries, but it has been extirpated from 16 and possibly extirpated from another 25, leaving only 6 countries where it certainly still survives. In terms of area this means that it certainly survives in only 19% of its historical range. It is the only sawfish that certainly still survives in the United States (the largetooth sawfish, "P. pristis", has likely been extirpated from this country), and it has been listed by the National Marine Fisheries Service as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 2003. It is estimated that the smalltooth sawfish population in the United States now equals less than 5% of the historical population in this country. In the United States it once occurred from Texas to New York (northern range as summer visitors), but today it is essentially limited to Florida. In the Everglades region of Florida the population is now stable and possibly slowly rising. Other countries where it certainly survives are the Bahamas, Cuba, Belize, Honduras and Sierra Leone, but whether it survives in the Western Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic coast of South America is unclear. The species is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Sawfish
Sawfish fishing goes back several thousand years, but until relatively recently it typically involved traditional low-intensity methods such as simple hook-and-line or spearing. In most regions the major population decline in sawfish started in the 1960s–1980s. This coincided with a major growth in demand of fins for shark fin soup, the expansion of the international shark finning fishing fleet, and a proliferation of modern nylon fishing nets. The exception is the dwarf sawfish which was relatively widespread in the Indo-Pacific, but by the early 1900s it had already disappeared from most of its range, only surviving for certain in Australia (there is a single recent possible record from the Arabian region). The saw has been described as sawfish's Achilles' heel, as it easily becomes entangled in fishing nets. Sawfish can also be difficult or dangerous to release from nets, meaning that some fishers will kill them even before bringing them aboard the boat, or cut off the saw to keep it/release the fish. Because it is their main hunting device, the long-term survival of saw-less sawfish is highly questionable. In Australia where sawfish have to be released if caught, the narrow sawfish has the highest mortality rate, but it is still almost 50% for dwarf sawfish caught in gill nets. In an attempt of lowering this, a guide to sawfish release has been published.