The sawfish is a peculiar creature with a long snoot resembling an oldtime lumberjack’s two-man felling saw, with long teeth on both sides. If you haven’t seen one of those, imagine a modern hedge trimmer’s blade.

Sawfish are great pals of the Kuna tribes on the Caribbean coasts of Panama and Colombia, helping them to fight off sharks. If a Kuna native is drowning, it’s a sawfish to the rescue.

Sawfish also protect Panamanians from supernatural enemies. In Papua New Guinea, they make fierce rainstorms to punish violators of traditional fishing taboos. Combative humans in New Guinea, New Zealand and the Philippines have used the saws as weapons.

If you’re a member of the right tribe, a sawfish snoot nailed above your door will keep ghosts out. Another suspended above a cradle will hush a crying baby.

In ancient times, spirits dressed as sawfish used their snoots to landscape northern Australia, roughing out riverbeds and (one might hope) rustic launching ramps.

And yet the state of Florida, which knows all that, says very little is known about smalltooth sawfish. Biologists led by Gregg Poulakis are trying to find out more precisely scientific stuff, at a Fish and Wildlife Research Institute station on Charlotte Harbor. They’re asking recreational fishing-doers to help them with detailed reports of catches and sightings.

Most of Florida’s sawfish, at least the ones they know about, are found between Charlotte Harbor and the Keys, where they use shorelines and estuaries for breeding and birthing. It’s known that sawfish are born about 2-and-a-half feet long and grow to 5 feet in a year. The big ones, 15 to 18 feet, usually are found offshore.

That’s not a bad lot of knowledge about fish that are scarce in Florida waters. The state has protected them since 1992, and they were placed on the federal Endangered Species list in 2003.

There used to be plenty, but too many were snagged in commercial nets. Recreational fishermen killed some too. Back then, sawfish were seen more as a good source of souvenirs and charms than a species worth saving.

If you catch one, regulations require you to let it go unharmed. That means handling it as little and as gently as possible while you untangle fishing line from the snoot.

Do not lift a sawfish out of the water to weigh it. Instead of a precise measurement, estimate its length compared to your shoe size, fishing rod, boat or something else of known length. Take note of the date and time of your catch, the location, water depth and anything else that looks interesting, even supernatural powers. Then tell the state biologists everything.

Not everyone is willing. We know a fishing-doer who caught a hefty one in Florida Bay. While he was trying to untangle it, he either fell overboard or the sawfish dragged him off the boat into shallow water, a better story. Good thing he’s tall.

When it was suggested that he report the incident, he frowned a refusal. He reckons that if governments know where there are sawfish, sooner or later they will close the area to all fishing.

If that’s not you, email your own sawfish story to sawfish@myFWC.com or phone 941-255-7403.