Emergency Response Triggered by Unusual Fish Behavior in Florida

Ripley’s Aquarium plans to introduce up to six small-toed sawfish to the facility. A spokesperson said the majority of the company’s animal care team will assist in the effort, including transporting the sawfish to the Marine Science Research Center to care for it.

Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium also said in a release that a quarantine facility for the rescued sawfish is ready and they are eager to help.

“Solving this mystery will require strong collaboration,” said Kathryn Flowers, Mort postdoctoral researcher and lead scientist on the effort.

The problem affects many species of fish off the coast of Florida, said Dean Grubbs, associate director of research at Florida State University’s Coastal Marine Research Institute.

“It goes all the way from very small prey species like pinfish to things like grouper and some stingrays,” he said.

Brehm said there are several theories about what’s going on, but with this type of event it’s difficult to come to an answer right away.

“I’ve heard to some extent that it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” he says. “But it’s very difficult to know which one it is because there are so many different possibilities.”

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said on wednesday They found evidence to rule out several potential causes. The report said the fish did not appear to be suffering from any infectious or bacterial infections, and other factors such as oxygen, salinity and temperature were not suspected to be contributing factors.

The commission’s hotline for sawfish sightings has been in place for years, but the number of calls has increased in the last month.

Shea McKeon, director of marine programs at the American Bird Conservancy, said the group is also closely monitoring the fish situation, but has not yet seen a link to the bird deaths. . To help scientists figure out the root cause, the public can record instances of strange fish behavior they see on the water and upload videos and photos to community science sites like iNaturalist.org he said.

Grubbs said the problem appears to have gotten worse since February.

“We’ve spent the last 15 years studying sawfish, so it’s very sad to see these sawfish die,” he said. “And it’s hard. It’s hard for my students, my graduate students, to see that. It’s definitely painful. We want to get to the bottom of it and find a way to recover from this.” Masu.”