Sawfish
The pregnancy lasts several months. There are 1–23 young in each sawfish litter, which are long at birth. In the embryos the rostrum is flexible and it only hardens shortly before birth. To protect the mother the saws of the young have a soft cover, which falls off shortly after birth. The pupping grounds are in coastal and estuarine waters. In most species the young generally stay there for the first part of their lives, occasionally moving upriver when there is an increase in salinity. The exception is the largetooth sawfish where the young move upriver into freshwater where they stay for 3–5 years, sometimes as much as from the sea. In at least the smalltooth sawfish the young show a degree of site fidelity, generally staying in the same fairly small area in the first part of their lives. In the green and dwarf sawfish there are indications that both sexes remain in the same overall region throughout their lives with little mixing between the subpopulations. In the largetooth sawfish the males appear to move more freely between the subpopulations, while mothers return to the region where they were born to give birth to their own young.
Sawfish
The only remaining stronghold of the four species in the Indo-Pacific region (narrow, dwarf, largetooth and green sawfish) is in Northern Australia, but they have also experienced a declined there. "Pristis" sawfish are protected in Australia and only Indigenous Australians can legally catch them. Violations can result in a fine of up to AU$121,900. The narrow sawfish does not receive the same level of protection as the "Pristis" sawfish. Under CITES regulations, Australia was the only country that could export wild-caught sawfish for the aquarium trade from 2007 to 2013 (no country afterwards). This strictly involved the largetooth sawfish where the Australian population remains relatively robust, and only living individuals "to appropriate and acceptable aquaria for primarily conservation purposes". Numbers traded were very low (eight between 2007 and 2011), and following a review Australia did not export any after 2011. Except for Australia, sawfish have been extirpated or only survive in very low numbers in the Indo-Pacific region. For example, among the four species only two (narrow and largetooth sawfish) certainly survive in South Asia, and only two (narrow and green sawfish) certainly survive in Southeast Asia.