A saw-toothed ray has vanished almost everywhere — except northern Australia, its last strong refuge

The green sawfish looks like something from a storybook: a ray with a shark-like body and a long, flat snout edged with teeth, like a saw. It once swam tropical coasts around the world, but overfishing, accidental catches in fishing nets and lost habitat have wiped it out across much of that range, including parts of Africa and southern Asia. Now researchers at Murdoch University in Australia have pulled together decades of studies to map where the species still holds on — and northern Australia, especially the Pilbara region of Western Australia, stands out as one of the last places with healthy populations. That matters because you cannot protect what you cannot find: knowing exactly where the sawfish still live tells conservationists where protection will count most.

SDG 14 · Life below water