Seahorses face many threats. They are hunted for use in traditional Asian medicines, to be sold dried as souvenirs, and for the aquarium industry. In the wild they live in some of the ocean’s most vulnerable ecosystems (coral reefs, mangroves, sea-grasses, estuaries) - so saving seahorses means saving the sea.

What is the threat?
Seahorses don’t have many natural predators as they have excellent camouflage and their bony-plated bodies make them unpalatable. However they face a number of other threats:

• The seahorse is a sought-after ingredient for traditional Asian medicine. Dead seahorses are ground-up and used as ‘cures’ for skin ailments, high cholesterol, excess throat phlegm, goitres, heart disease, lymph node disorders, incontinence and impotence. In response, subsistence and small-scale fishers in Asia increasingly target seahorses.
• Additionally, because seahorses keep their shape when dried, many more are sold as souvenirs. The largest markets for these curios are North America, Europe, Japan and Taiwan.
• Despite being notoriously hard to keep in home aquaria, thousands of seahorses are also taken each year for the aquarium trade. This leads to huge numbers dying quickly from poor nutrition, stress and disease. The aquarium trade absorbs hundreds of thousands of live seahorses every year.
• Habitat degradation and pollution reduces the available habitat for seahorses. They are also often accidentally caught as by-catch in the shrimp-trawling industry. Blast-fishing (when explosives are used to stun fish on the reef) also hurts seahorse populations. 

‘China’s economic boom has created a soaring demand for dried seahorses and these are now being traded by up to 80 countries from Ecuador to Italy and Mozambique to the USA.’

What are charities doing to help?
Project Seahorse (PS), co-founded with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), was set up in 1996 in response to the massive pressures facing all seahorses around the world. Conservation and management plans are urgently required but given that the majority of seahorses go to traditional Asian medicine (TAM) and its derivatives (such as Japanese and Korean traditional medicines), these plans need to take the human communities that depend on seahorses for income and medicines into consideration.

More about Project Seahorse
Project Seahorse conducts research and management at all scales, using the seahorse as a focus for creating wider marine-conservation solutions. It also works with poor fishing communities in the Philippines, establishing marine-protected areas and organising communities to take action in marine-conservation issues. In Hong Kong and other main international ports for marine species trade, PS collaborates with traditional Asian medicine and aquarium traders, encouraging them to adopt trade policies and tools that will help to secure the sustainability of seahorse populations. PS also strives to educate the public worldwide about global responsibility and consumer choices.

What can I do?

• Never buy seahorse souvenirs - if we don’t buy, the shops won’t sell.
• You can also help by donating to the BBC Wildlife Fund.

 Did you know?

• Seahorses are unique in the animal kingdom because it is the males who give birth to young.
• An estimated 24 million seahorses are taken from the wild every year, dried and sold for use in traditional Asian medicine.
• The leafy sea dragon, phycodurus eques, is related to the seahorse. Its beautiful long, leaf-like protrusions all over its body camouflage it among the weeds.
• The seahorse's scientific genus name is ‘hippocampus’, a derivative of the Greek words ‘hippos’ meaning horse and ‘campus’ meaning sea monster.
• Seahorses can change colour to help them blend into their surroundings.
• Seahorses also change colour as a way of communicating - when an established male and female pair greet each other, they grow brighter.