Two men used illegal gillnet to catch endangered sawfish in SW Florida, police say
Two Miami Gardens men are accused of using an illegal gillnet over the weekend to catch a federally endangered smalltooth sawfish on the Southwest coast of the state, according to state wildlife officers.
The men on Saturday also caught six undersized snook and several silver mullet in Everglades City, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Using a gillnet — a long net with flotation buoys on top and lead weights on the bottom — is illegal in state waters. Additionally, smalltooth sawfish — which look like sharks, but are rays, and have a long, serrated saw-like rostrum — have been protected in Florida since the 1990s and were placed on the federal Endangered Species List in 2003.
Giraldo Gorrin Amador, 56, and Pablo Huet Conde, 56, were arrested Saturday and face a litany of misdemeanor conservation charges, as well as a felony charge each for using a gillnet. The men, who could not be reached for comment, have since been released on bond, according to Collier County Sheriff’s Office jail online records.
FWC Capt. Randy Yanez said there could be further action on the case by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“We have zero tolerance for these deliberate and reckless acts of poaching within Collier County. We will be working with our federal partners at the US Fish & Wildlife Service and the State Attorney’s Office to hold these individuals accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Yanez said in a statement.
FWC officers spotted Gorrin Amador and Huet Conde around 11 p.m. on a small boat in the bay shining a light in the mangroves, said Officer Jason Rafter, an agency spokesman.
“Upon closer inspection with binoculars, the officers witnessed three male subjects striking and retrieving a gillnet,” Rafter added.
When the boat came to shore, the officers took the gillnet off the boat, finding the sawfish, snook and mullet in a cooler on the boat. All of the fish died, and Rafter noted that “the sawfish was preserved for science.”
Gorrin Amador and Huet Conde “confessed to using the gillnet and catching the fish,” Rafter said.
Smalltooth sawfish once had a historical range from Texas to North Carolina. Their numbers dwindled over the years because they were caught as bycatch in commercial fishing gillnets and trawls — and through habitat loss, according to the FWC. Now, they are almost exclusively found in Florida.
“Every fish of this species counts,” Rafter said.
This story has been updated since new information emerged from FWC that the fish were found by agency officers in a cooler on the boat, not still in the mesh of the gillnet.
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 7:57 PM.
