Riding to the Seahorse's Rescue - biologist Amanda Vincent

International Wildlife, March, 1999

"I never anticipated that the animals about which I knew more than most biologists would turn out to be animals that were under heavy pressure," she says. "Everything I knew about them suddenly became relevant."

With funding from the National Geographic Society, Vincent set out in 1993 to explore the previously undocumented global trade in seahorses. Her investigation took her from the exotic Chinese medicine shops of Hong Kong to the harbors of Thailand and the Philippines. Undeterred in her work despite threats on her life, she found that the creatures were exported from almost every country where they lived, but that Thailand, India, Vietnam and the Philippines were the largest exporters. She estimates that more than 20 million seahorses a year are taken from the ocean.

The largest consumers of seahorses are purveyors of traditional Chinese medicines. The fish are considered remedies for respiratory ailments, impotence and other sexual disorders, skin ailments, heart disease and a variety of other problems. Vincent is hoping to work with these vendors to curb this demand.

But a recent visit to a Chinese drug store in Cebu City, three hours by boat from Vincent's project in Handumon, shows how much work she has to do. With colorful medicine boxes labeled in Cantonese and Mandarin, and a glass case containing herbs and powders, the cramped, dimly lit store is doing a brisk business. Raw dried seahorses, when soaked in hot water and drunk like tea, are effective in treating stomach problems, says Alan Mataragnon, the shop owner's son. But none are in stock right now. Instead, he recommends a bottle of Sea Horse Genital Tonic Pills, which cost about $1.50 a bottle and promise to be a "genital strengthener."

"It's good medicine. It's quite popular," says Mataragnon. "We used to only have Chinese customers, but Chinese medicine is cheaper than the pharmacy. We have Filipinos, Americans, all types."

Western doctors don't recognize the medicinal use of seahorses, but Vincent reserves judgment. "We take the view that traditional Chinese medicine is full of valid treatments and remedies and prescriptions, but that even were it to be medically valid to use seahorses, they have to be used on a sustainable basis," she says.

Though the vast majority of seahorses taken out of the ocean end up in the Chinese traditional medicine trade, North America and Europe are also major consumers. Westerners buy most of the seahorses sold for aquariums or souvenirs, and both uses are problematic, Vincent says.

"There is a heavy trade in seahorses for the aquarium fish market, and seahorses do not do well in captivity," she says. "People buy them, they fall in love with them, and when the seahorses die they want more."

About a million seahorses every year are made into key chains, paperweights, or dipped in gold and made into broaches. "It's very hard to see the benefits of a seahorse key ring," says Vincent.

Possibly the largest threat to the animals is the steady degradation by humans of their coastal habitats. Seahorses live in sea grasses, mangroves and coral reefs, which Vincent notes are some of the world's most threatened marine habitats. No one knows how many die each year as those areas are damaged and destroyed around the world.