Aussie scientists find new way to save largetooth sawfish from extinction

Australian scientists have developed a new test that could give the prehistoric-looking largetooth sawfish a better chance of survival and seemingly save it from extinction.

Scientists from the James Cook University and Charles Darwin University said on Tuesday that they had developed a new technology known as the eDNA (environmental DNA) which accurately detects the whereabouts of the fish in remote northern Australia for conversation purposes.

Previously, the sawfish was a hard species to detect owing to scientist heavy reliance on traditional time-consuming and expensive methods such as fishing surveys.

However, that is all set to change with the discovery of the new eDNA technique that gives accurate information on the fish whereabouts in waterholes but not in flowing rivers, said James Cook University Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture Director Professor Colin Simpfendorfer.

"It's not a big problem, this is very much a trial phase and it will be solved quite easily given some more time," he said.

He said the eDNA techniques were evolving and were a huge advancement for the species conservation.

"Sawfish are globally distributed and we don't even know if they still exist in many countries. Applying the eDNA approach globally will enable us to rapidly find threatened populations and prioritize their protection," Simpfendorfer said.

At present, the largetooth sawfish is believed to have been extinct in 50 countries with Northern Australia being one of the last few places in the world where it can still be found. Endit