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Marine community science presents an important route to gather valuable scientific information, while also influencing local management and policy, and thus contributing to marine conservation efforts. Because seahorses are cryptic but charismatic species, they are good candidates for engaging diverse people to help overcome the many gaps in biological knowledge. We have synthesized information contributed to the community science project iSeahorse from October 2013 to April 2022 for 35 of 46 known seahorse species. We then compared the obtained results with information in existing IUCN Red List assessments, executed from 2014 to 2017, to explore the potential of iSeahorse in expanding seahorse knowledge. Our results show updated geographic ranges for seven seahorse species, new habitats described for 24 species, observations outside the previously recorded depth range for 14 species, as well as new information on sex ratio for 15 species and on pregnancy seasonality for 11 species. As one example of the power of iSeahorse, contributed observations on Coleman’s Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus colemani) indicated that its geographic range is thousands of km2 larger, its habitat more diverse, and its depth range 0.12 times shallower than previously known. It is clear that iSeahorse is greatly expanding knowledge on seahorses, to a level that will help improve IUCN Red List assessments. The power of community science for marine conservation in general needs to be fully explored.

The global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has significant potential to help improve the population status of wild animals and plants subject to international trade, and thus to help reconcile conservation of these species with sustainable use.

In this Fisheries Centre Research Report (FCRR), Project Seahorse team members, with members of the IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group (SPS SG, www.iucn-seahorse.org) investigated the international live trade in seahorses by species, countries of origin, whether specimens were wild sourced or cultured, destinations, volumes, and their changes over time. They did this by undertaking extensive stakeholder interviews, as well as reviewing government and industry datasets to compare seahorse trade across three geographies and four time periods – from pre-listing by The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), through to late in the CITES review process (2013-2020). In addition to the global overview, they also delved into two main destination markets for the live seahorse trade: the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (U.S.).

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) concludes in their Global Assessment1 that the world’s marine biodiversity has been declining for decades because of overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, and others human activities. Such losses have wide-ranging and cascading impacts on people’s livelihood, health, and wellbeing. Actions to reverse such trend are urgently needed, yet the lack of understanding on the status of marine biodiversity is an important barrier to effective conservation actions. Such knowledge gap is also a syndrome of the broader global conservation and societal challenges. The research and its findings conducted by the Project Seahorse* and documented in this Fisheries Centre Research Report provide in-depth assessments on the gaps in global extinction risk assessments with particular focus on Syngnathid fishes. Syngnathids include seahorses, pipefishes, pipehorses, and seadragons. They are unique and marvellous in many aspects such as their morphology, reproductive biology, the mythology around them, as well as their societal values. In contrast, the conservation challenges that syngnathid fishes face are common across many other marine species groups. The comprehensive global assessment for syngnathids presented here thus serves as a lens to highlight where effective policies, research and investments are needed to safeguard the conservation of marine biodiversity in general.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora decided to implement export controls for all seahorses in 2002 to ensure international trade is sustainable, legal and monitored. The Philippines, however, has not implemented the listing because their domestic Fisheries Code banned the extraction of any CITES listed marine species, including seahorses, since 1998. Exploitation continued nonetheless – field visits and surveys among importers in other countries revealed that fisheries and trade for seahorses continued illegally without monitoring or regulation. The revision of the Fisheries Code four years ago has provided renewed opportunity, however, to manage seahorse fisheries and trade for sustainability. Filipino Authorities are now in need of information that would allow them to develop a seahorse management plan, re-open legal fisheries and trades in a precautionary manner, and subsequently monitor and manage them in support of sustainable populations. In order to generate vital knowledge in support of this plan, we gathered information on the biology, fisheries, and trade of seahorses in the Philippines by conducting 268 interviews with fishers and traders across seventeen coastal provinces from May to July 2019. Fishers reported catching seahorses from ten different types of fishing gear, some of which targeted seahorses (spear/skin divers, compressor divers, micro-trawls, push nets, and gleaners) and others which captured them incidentally in pursuit of other targets (gill nets (bottom), gill nets (floating), otter trawls, fish traps, and seines). The most commonly reported gear type was spear/skin diving. Mean catch per unit effort varied among gear types from fewer than one seahorse per day per gill net (bottom and floating), otter trawl and fish trap, to between one and ten seahorses per day for gleaners, spear/skin divers, compressor divers and fish nets, to as high as 100 seahorses per day per micro-trawler. Scaling up catch rates (CPUE) to annual catch estimated a total national catch of ~1.7 million individual seahorses per year across the gear type/province combinations for which we had sufficient data. Compressor fishers were estimated to catch more than all other gear types combined, landing approximately 913,000 seahorses per year (54% of the total estimated catch), more than micro-trawls (~260,000 individuals), push nets (217,000 individuals) and spear/skin divers (~214,000 individuals) combined. The provinces of Iloilo, Masbate, Sulu, Bohol and Palawan together accounted for over 80% of our total national catch estimate, each landing between ~222,000 and ~359,000 individuals per year. Our interviews with 31 buyers across ten provinces produced only limited quantitative information on purchase and sale volumes of seahorses in trade, but can infer that the majority of seahorse catches were dried and destined for export – we found very little evidence of live trade or domestic use. Buyers in the northern province of Pangasinan reported purchasing the largest number of seahorses per year. Seven different seahorse species were identified in trade (Hippocampus barbouri, H. comes, H. histrix, H. kelloggi, H. kuda, H. spinosissimus and H. trimaculatus), with H. comes and H. kuda comprising nearly two-thirds of specimens we surveyed. Buyers reported selling seahorses for between three and five times the price they paid fishers to acquire them; the median buying price per seahorses was USD 0.58, and the median selling price was USD 460 per kilogram or USD 2.30 per individual. Ninety-eight percent of fishers reported a decline in seahorse catch over time, and spear/skin divers in Bohol and Surigao del Norte reported a decline in seahorse CPUE of 86% over a twenty-year period and 98% over a thirty-year period, respectively. Other indicators of conservation concern included highly skewed sex ratios across all species (more females than males); the proportion of males observed to be pregnant (about half of H. barbouri and more than half H. kuda males); and, for H. kuda, the mean size of sampled individuals was smaller than the species size at maturity. Our surveys indicate that the Philippines is not fully implementing CITES regulations: none of the seahorse catch was being monitored or regulated to any extent to assess sustainability, and exports of dried seahorses were occurring illegally without CITES permits. For the Philippines to make progress in conserving seahorses it needs to pay attention to their fisheries, trade and conservation. The results of this study can be used to set the initial terms for sustainable exploitation under the revised Fisheries Code, terms which can be revised as more is learned in an adaptive management framework. The road map is there, the tools are in place, and the protocols are available to make considerable progress.

Small-scale fisheries catch and effort estimates are often built on incomplete data because they overlook the fishing of minority or marginalized groups. Women do participate in small-scale fisheries, and often in ways distinct from men’s fishing. Hence, the inclusion of women’s fishing is necessary to understanding the diversity and totality of human fishing efforts. This case study examines how the inclusion of women’s fishing alters the enumeration of fishers, and estimations of catch weight, fishing effort, and targeted organisms in twelve communities in the Central Philippines. Women were 42% of all fishers, and contributed approximately one quarter of the fishing effort and catch weight. Narrower definitions of fishing that excluded gleaning (gathering of benthic macro invertebrates in intertidal areas) and part-time fishing masked the participation and contribution of most women fishers. In this case study it is clear that overlooking women, part-time, or gleaning fishers led to the underestimation of fishing effort and catch weight. Overlooking gleaning had also led to underestimation of shells and other benthic macro invertebrates in fishing catches.

The database generated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES: www.unep-cites.org) offers an unparalleled opportunity to analyse trade in species of conservation concern. We here evaluate its value and challenges in the context of trade in seahorses (Hippocampus spp), with a view to enhancing the CITES database to its full potential. All seahorses are included on Appendix II of the Convention, requiring that all 176 Parties to CITES (signatory countries) limit exports to levels that do not damage wild populations, and report their trade to CITES. This is the first examination of CITES data for any marine fish of commercial importance; seahorses are traded for traditional medicine, aquarium display and curiosities. We analysed the records of seahorse trade submitted by Parties to CITES in the four years after implementation of the listing, which occurred in 2004, and compared reported trends to historical data sets collected in global trade surveys between 1998 and 2001. This allowed us to 1) see what CITES data can tell us about trends in the global trade of seahorse, 2) compare recent CITES data to historical prelisting survey data, and 3) highlight the benefits and pitfalls of using the CITES Trade Database for analysing trade in threatened species. Our evaluation indicated that Parties need to improve their entries by identifying the exports to species (23% of records were reported only to the level of genus), providing units for exports (e.g. individuals, kgs), and recording all trade shipments. In particular, the substantial mismatch in species and volumes between (i) mandatory export records for all Parties and (ii) voluntary import records by particular Parties emphasises the value of the latter and argues a need for greater universal compliance with CITES reporting requirements. The discrepancies among export and import data also suggested under-reporting to be a major problem with CITES data for seahorses. The challenges with the CITES database were more evident for the global trade in dried seahorses than the smaller and more discrete trade in live seahorses. For all the limitations of the CITES data, they indicated that seven years after implementing CITES for seahorses, the trade in these marine fishes continues to involve tens of species, scores of countries and millions of animals – the vast majority of which were reportedly traded dried and from the wild. The CITES database reports more species in trade and lower volumes of trade than had been estimated historically, but the evident data gaps mean that we cannot deduce where the correct estimate lies. Asian countries were both the main exporters and importers for seahorses over time, with Thailand as the primary source for seahorses in dried trade, and Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and mainland China as the major consumers. The inferences we were forced to make from CITES data suggested substantial new exports from Guinea. These patterns in source and consumption of dried seahorses were reflected in the species reported to CITES – with the vast majority of the dried trade by volume reported as one of three Asian (Hippocampus trimaculatus, H. spinosissimus, H. kelloggi) or one West African (H. algiricus) species. CITES data reported a level of export of live seahorses from 2004-2008 that was rather lower than that deduced pre-CITES, and indicated an increasing reliance on captive-breeding operations to supply the live trade. Southeast Asian countries declared most of the trade in live seahorses, a finding consistent with historic trade patterns, and the USA remained the primary destination for live trade. As with the dried trade, the live trade reported to CITES was focused on a few species. Two species, H. kuda and H. reidi, were reported to make up more than three-quarters of live trade volumes in CITES data. Despite the challenges faced in using CITES data to analyse trade in seahorses, the CITES Trade Database gives us an unparalleled tool to investigate the trade in seahorses and other listed species. There is, however, a clear need to improve the reliability and thus increase the utility of the database. Some suggested improvements include: 1) automate record validation to help eliminate common sources of reporting discrepancies; 2) increased capacity to improve species identification and emphasize the importance of accuracy in volumes and units; 3) allowances for easier submission of records of derivatives (including species content); and 4) implement a system to cross-validate data through field and trade sampling. It is important to realise that even perfect CITES data would leave many questions unanswered. For example, for all Parties there is a great need to understand any domestic consumption of seahorses (which is sometimes very large) and the additional pressure it may apply.

Seahorses (family Syngnathidae, genus Hippocampus) have set precedents globally. They were among the first marine fishes of commercial importance to be listed on both the IUCN Red List and CITES Appendix II. Overfishing and non-selective fishing are two agents in their depletion, so management is clearly needed. We here outline what is known about these fishes and their trade, before considering the potential role the culture and release could play in rebuilding wild populations.

Bycatch studies have largely ignored population level effects on fish species of little commercial interest. Here we analyze bycatch of the lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus) in the bait-shrimp trawl fishery in Hernando Beach, Florida, providing the first fisheries data for this species. Based on catch per unit of effort (CPUE), size, sex, and reproductive status of trawled H. erectus, 1) approximately 72,000 seahorses were caught annually by this fleet, from a population of unknown size, 2) trawling affected population cohorts differentially because of temporal and spatial variation in CPUE and population size, and 3) a greater proportion of females than males was removed in trawling. Our findings suggest that trawling may affect seahorse populations through direct mortality, social disruption, and habitat damage. However, the lack of specific abundance or catchability estimates for H. erectus means that the precise impact of trawling on this fish remains uncertain. This paper focuses attention on the need for research and monitoring of small fishes that are caught incidentally in nonselective gear.