Why are Seahorses endangered?
- They are hunted by asian countries for medicinal use.
- Trawling nets by ships destroy their natural habitat.
- Storms sometimes push Seahorses onto the shore, or make the seahorses fall off their anchored area e.g. seaweed, macro-algae. *Seahorses cannot live without being anchored on to something, because they cannot swim for long before becoming exhausted.
- They have predators, such as crabs, rays and tunas.
Information on Seahorses
Seahorses is a very interesting animal, with over 35+ known species. They ae birth to the babies. Their diet consists of brine shrimp, plankton and other microscopic creatures in the sea, and they eat over 3000 shrimp everyday because they have no teeth or stomach and need to eat constantly to stay alive. They live in salt water, and cannot live in fresh water for very long. They are thought to have evolved 40 million years ago. They are a very unique animal because they are the only animal in the world where males gives birth to the babies, because although that the female makes the eggs, she implants the eggs into the male's pouch, which he then fertilises and gives birth to. Their average life span is thought to be from 1-5 years, and can grow from 1 inch to 1 foot, they like to live in warmer waters because it's more calm in warmer water.
What we're doing to preserve/ save them
Since seahorses are a currently endangered species there are of course people trying to save them. CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) currently is protecting them, and have made them illegal to hunt. Although this makes Seahorses even more rare, because it makes the seahorses even more expensive for illegal trades to sell. Currently there are places that have a high health gene bank for breeding each one of the seahorse species, to make sure that they cannot be hunted and never become extinct. They are not officially endangered, but research has shown that in the past 5 years, some seahorse populations have decreased by 50%!
What effect would this have on the ecosystem if seahorses became extinct?
Although seahorses may not seem to do any good for the ecosystem, they are actually very important to other animals. Such as those that prey upon seahorses e.g crabs, rays etc... and brine shrimp would over populate greatly. Because seahorses are known to eat 360 brine fish per hour. Baby seahorses provide a meal for some a large variety of plankton eating animals because they are so small.
