Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

The “Extinct” Sea Creature That Just Returned

East London resident Mike Vincent made a discovery that sent shockwaves through South Africa’s marine conservation community when he found the remains of what experts believe is a large-tooth sawfish washed up on a beach south of the Birah River Mouth. This marks the first known sawfish sighting in South African waters since 1999, when the last recorded individual was released alive from KwaZulu-Natal shark nets, making Vincent’s find a potentially game-changing moment for marine conservation. Sawfish, despite their misleading appearance, are actually rays rather than sharks, easily recognizable by their long, flattened snouts edged with tooth-like structures called rostrums, and they’re considered the most endangered elasmobranchs globally.

East London Museum’s Kevin Cole immediately recognized the significance of the find and rushed to collect samples for further study. Knowing that both species known to occur in South Africa, the green sawfish and the large-tooth sawfish, had been presumed locally extinct due to habitat loss and destructive fishing methods like gillnetting. While one sawfish doesn’t signal a full species recovery, conservation experts say it represents something precious: possibility. The discovery has reignited calls for restoring critical estuarine habitats and protecting marine heritage, proving that sometimes the most important conservation victories come from unexpected beach walks. This remarkable sighting reminds us that nature can surprise us even when we think all hope is lost, and that our oceans may still hold secrets we thought were gone forever.

PrevPreviousBlue the Leopard Tortoise’s Recovery Miracle
NextTwo Doses Outperformed Traditional Depression TherapiesNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

Dog Finds A Message In A Bottle That Crossed The Atlantic From Canada

March 24, 2026

On a wildly stormy morning on a beach in northeast Scotland, a dog named Maggie was doing what dogs do best: sniffing everything in sight. Her owner Mike Scott, a photographer who walks his dogs at St Cyrus in Aberdeenshire almost every day, noticed Maggie circling a dark glass bottle

Read More
Happy News

AI That Predicts Cancer Spreading With 80% Accuracy

March 24, 2026

One of the most frightening things about cancer is not the tumor you can see but the possibility that it has already begun to quietly spread somewhere else in the body, and a new artificial intelligence tool developed at the University of Geneva can now predict that risk with nearly

Read More
Happy News

John Cena’s Viral Hug Reminds The World Why He Is One Of The Greats

March 24, 2026

Few people in the public eye have used their platform as quietly and consistently for good as John Cena, and a moment that went viral recently served as a perfect reminder of why that matters. At a fan convention in Orlando, a man approached Cena during a panel and shared

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.