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| Where have all the wild seahorses gone? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Craig Hawkins, Seahorse Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The charm of seahorses has captivated marine aquarium hobbyists for decades. The seahorse/pipefish family (Syngnathidae) is the only one known where it is the male who gives birth – and perhaps that’s why they have always been especially popular with female hobbyists. There’s nothing like seeing a pregnant, grumpy, brooding and uncomfortable male giving birth to up to a thousand babies! |
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European data have been collected since the late 1990s when seahorses were first mooted for listing on CITES. These data support the suggestion of a decline in wild trade, with a peak of importing in the year 2000 at just over 30,000 individuals, but dropping dramatically to less than 5,000/yr in the last few years. The major importing countries in Europe have been the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. By far the main source of seahorses has been SE Asia, with more than 90% of all wild seahorses sent from that region in 2005-2007. Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam were the major exporting countries. There has been a slight increase from South America in recent years, but it remains relatively small on the global scale. Seahorse Populations With such high consumption it is reasonable to ask if seahorses are becoming hard to find in the wild. Traditional fishing grounds for seahorses in places like the Philippines and Indonesia have, indeed, reported dramatic declines in catches of up to 70% according the international research group, Project Seahorse. But is this really affecting the ornamental trade in seahorses? Given the reports of population crashes in some areas and the fact that all seahorse species are listed on the United Nations endangered species red list, it is not unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that over-fishing has had an impact on availability for the ornamental trade. One major exporter in Indonesia told me that they have recently had problems filling an order of only 200 seahorses. But when you think about it, it really doesn’t make sense if the ornamental trade is unable to catch less than 1% of that being consumed every year for Traditional Chinese Medicine! Clearly, there are plenty of seahorses available to meet the demand for the ornamental trade. Indeed, some seahorse experts, such as Australian, Rudie Kuiter, argue that the population declines are wildly exaggerated away from the traditional fishing grounds. He says that you can readily find seahorses if you know where to look. Then what about the Indonesian exporter who said he couldn’t fill an order of 200 seahorses? Such a claim needs to be examined in light of the fact that a smuggler was arrested at Jakarta airport in March 2008 trying to transport 23,000 dried seahorses to South Korea. He clearly had no problem finding a large number of them, only getting them past Indonesian police. This case may be demonstrating one of the side effects of increased regulation, such as CITES.
Increased Regulation The hassle of paperwork and restrictions can, not only give a higher value to the regulated animal, but can also make the black market for dried seahorses much easier to deal with for collectors because:
So regulations may have had the effect, at least in some countries – including major exporting regions - of directing trade to the TCM market at the expense of the ornamental trade! This may be exacerbated if population declines in the traditional collecting areas are making collectors work harder for their catch. Regulations associated with CITES or the additional European Union restrictions also have other impacts on trade. Wholesalers and exporters that I have spoken to in a range of countries, all conclude that regulations have increased the price on seahorses. This clearly flows onto pet shop sales and, when significant enough, decreases demand. Five years ago, a wild-caught seahorse in Australia retailed for about US$10, now they are about $40-50 and even as high as $100 each. More regulation also normally means more paperwork and, sometimes, this is too much hassle for buyers and sellers, especially if there is no corresponding increase in value. A number of UK importers indicated that the problems associated with European and CITES regulations reduced their desire to import seahorses at all. Regulations in various regions have also directly impacted trade. The Scientific Review Group of the European Union has implemented regulations more stringent than CITES, suspending trade in six seahorse species from Indonesia and Hippocampus kuda from Vietnam. Given that Indonesia has been one of the top exporters of seahorses, this has, obviously, had an impact on the trade. Indonesia, possibly in response to the bans, has recently decreased the allowable catch quotas of these species by 23% from 2005-2007. These quota restrictions, however, may not be having much of an impact because the demand for wild seahorses appears to be low anyway. There are unsubstantiated reports that Indonesia is moving to ban all seahorse exports in 2010, a position that the Philippines has already taken.
Market Demand for Wild-caught Seahorses There are some valid concerns in the hobbyist community that wild-caught seahorses are too hard to keep in an aquarium because they require live food. In Australia, wild-caught seahorses from Western Australia can be found in pet shops and they are not always clearly distinguished from captive-bred animals. Seahorse Australia receives many ‘phone calls from hobbyists who have been disillusioned with seahorse keeping because they have unwittingly purchased a wild animal and then found it hard to feed and therefore keep alive. Apart from feeding issues associated with wild seahorses, they are not harder to keep than most marine fish. Misgivings about seahorses generally are more to do with the challenges of the marine sector of the market overall, compared with the larger and more widely understood freshwater fish market. Nevertheless, there is a growing mood in the hobbyist community that wildcaught seahorses are best avoided in preference for captive-bred specimens and this, in my opinion, is the single biggest contributor to their decline in the market.
Rise of the Captive Breeding Sector Hobbyists have increasingly had access to captive-bred seahorses, with the first seahorse farms starting up in the late 1990s in Australia, Hawaii and New Zealand and mostly supplying domestic markets. More recently, operations in Sri Lanka and Vietnam began supplying internationally in large numbers. For the three years of records since CITES listing, international trade in captive-bred seahorses has hovered between 45-90,000 individuals, with 2006 seeing the highest numbers when Sri Lanka and Vietnam were both in full swing.
An apparent massive decline in production from Vietnam in 2007 is not accurate, according to a senior seahorse researcher from that country, who indicated that production was as high as 100,000 individuals in that year. This begs the question: Why hasn’t this information made it to the CITES records, and are there gaps in the system?
Domestic production is also available in a number of other countries, including the United States, Brazil, Mexico and some European countries, and these figures are not included in the CITES records. Therefore, the overall level of trade in any one area, including the domestic component, is difficult to calculate precisely, but it is significantly higher than the CITES figures indicate.
There is no doubt that the captive-bred option is more expensive than the wildcaught one, but serious hobbyists appear willing to spend the extra money for a number of reasons and these are readily found by simply looking at the major seahorse hobbyist chat-lists on the Internet. I have seen captive-bred seahorses in the United States selling for more than US$200 each. Table 1 gives some of the major reasons why captive-bred seahorses are replacing wild-caught ones in the market. The fact that they readily eat frozen foods is a huge bonus to fish keepers who would otherwise need to go to the trouble of raising live food, or the expense of buying it regularly.
Disease is more readily managed in captive-bred seahorses and this is sometimes related to the fact that they are of a known age and not potentially old and sick like some wild-caught specimens would be. Disease, however, is always a risk in fish farming enterprises as well and must be managed carefully. The environmental consideration is an important one for many hobbyists and also some importers. One importer in the United Kingdom only deals with captive-bred specimens due to the understood environmental consequences of getting wild-caught individuals. If you read some of the hobbyist websites you are treated like one of the worst criminals if you even hint that you might be keeping wild-caught seahorses. Many media reports also wrongly suggest that seahorses are nearly extinct, so the public perception is growing that it is simply environmentally unacceptable to keep wild-caught seahorses.
The growth in global Internet use over the last five to six years has coincided with CITES regulations on seahorses and, while I do not discount that the regulations have had a part to play in the declining demand for wildcaught specimens, especially in Europe, my opinion is that Internet education of the captive-bred option has played a most significant role in the decline of the wildcaught market. When you consider that North America and Europe, which dominate the seahorse trade, are also regions with huge Internet use, it is not surprising that Internet opinions expressed on websites and in chat groups enormously sway market trends. This trend is very clearly towards the captive-bred option. I am not declaring that the wild-catch is environmentally unsustainable. Rather, I am highlighting that the generalised public perception is that the wild seahorse catch is unacceptable on environmental grounds (rightly or wrongly).
The Future of Ornamental Seahorses The current trends of increasing regulations, direct bans and consumer understanding suggest that the trade in wild seahorses will continue to decline. The success of captive-breeding facilities on the other hand, hangs in the balance, owing to the high costs involved and some technical difficulties. The overall market is not enormous for seahorses and, coupled with the difficulties and costs involved, this has seen several farming attempts close in a range of countries. Even in Australia, three of the four farms rely significantly on tourism. The future of seahorse farming, especially in developed countries, is more likely in diversified farms where a range of products are offered, or in small-scale homebased operations supplying domestic demand at affordable prices. Alternatively, larger-scale farms in developing countries, as seen in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, may be viable in the longer term. One thing is for certain: the uniqueness of seahorses is set to captivate people for many years yet.
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