Seahorse Depletion
Every species of seahorse is on the verge of extinction. In May 2004, thirty two species of seahorses will be registered on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) list, which requires that all imports, exports, and re-exports of seahorses must be authorized through a licensing system. In 1995 alone, 20 million seahorses were traded throughout the world and this number has steadily increased by 10% per year (26). From 1990 to 1995 there was a 50% decline in seahorse population (34). The high demand for seahorses is due to the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Market and the aquarium trade. The other major cause of seahorse depletion is due to habitat destruction by humans.
The Traditional Chinese Medicine Market is responsible for the largest consumption of seahorses (26). TCM has one of the largest constituencies of any organization with member countries ranging from the traditional Japanese and Korean Medicines, Traditional Indian Jamu Medicine, Philippine Folk Medicine, European Alternative Medicine as well as the rapidly forming American Alternative Medicinal market (32). As a medicine, seahorses are either dried, fermented in a liquid, or ground into powder along with other ingredients and then sold to these markets by the kilo because they are thought to contain natural testosterone. It is believed that consuming seahorses can cure a variety of ailments such as sexual dysfunction, circulatory problems, asthma, heart disease, throat infections, kidney, liver disease, skin ailments, respiratory ailments, and pain (24). The demand for prepackaged patent medicines to treat these ailments is on the rise. These prepackaged medicines put ground up seahorses into pill, capsule, or liquid form for easier digestion. This allows the industry to increase sales to a wider audience by marketing this animal in pill form, so that users are not disgusted and turned off by its dark, spiny appearance (figure 1).
There is a high demand for seahorses by recreational aquarists. However, the chances of these seahorses surviving is not much more than those in the TCM. Seahorses are a very difficult fish to rear and they often do not live long in aquarium settings. They are prone to disease and so they require superb water quality control, and because they have an inefficient stomach they require a continuous feeding regiment of diverse live feed. Due to the high level of husbandry, only experienced marine aquarists should care for them.
Figure 1.
Pictures provided by Project Seahorse
The aquarium trade is responsible for the second largest portion of seahorses traded, but compared to the TCM the amount of seahorses they extract is negligible (26). Although the aquarium trade extracts fewer seahorses, the unsustainable practices they use cause greater destruction to the marine habitat. A method used by tropical fish suppliers is the use of cyanide to capture the fish. Cyanide poisoning stuns the fish, making them easier to catch, but not only does it damage the health of the fish, it also kills off the living coral reef which is home to thousands of other species.
Grassbeds, coral reefs, mangroves, and shallow coastal waters, which are home to many marine species, are being destroyed at a rapid rate because of human coastal development. Humans have irreversibly converted these habitats from their natural state and have increased the influx of pollution. This leads to problems such as eutrophication, which is a process that causes anoxic conditions due to decomposing algal blooms (31). Other destructive fishing habits such as bottom trawling flattens the sea bottom, making it more uniform and less diverse, reducing the livable habitat left for seahorses (31).
By not being very mobile seahorses end up in fishing nets, and are written off as "bycatch". Bycatch occurs during fish harvest when fishing nets catch unmarketable or non-intended species. Studies done in the Gulf of Mexico show that approximately 72,000 seahorses were caught annually as bycatch by shrimp trawlers (3). This can have a detrimental effect on fishing yields, but also degrades the ecosystems ability to support biological diversity. On a larger scale, factors like El Nino, global climate change due to global warming and increased UV ray penetration has the potential to increase sea levels, which can cause widespread coral bleaching, reducing the amount of livable habitat for all marine organisms.
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