WOW! a seahorses natural predator!

[Clownfish29]

Hello,
I am an avid sportfisherman, and here in NJ, we have very good fishing. I went fishing today for tuna, and went to a spot in about 200 feet of water 36 miles from shore. We were not catching any tuna, so we pulled up to some lobster pots. The lobster pots are an area were Mahi-Mahi can seek shade during the day, so they usually hang out there. We caught 15 of them. The water temp, btw, was 69 degrees. Later today, as we were filleting our catch for the kitchen (YUM:rollface I decided to check out the stomach, ya know, see what these fish are eating all day. In each of the 15 mahi mahi we caught today, I pulled out atleast 8 or 9 whole seahorses...in each fish! They were about 2 inches, and definitely hippocampus erectus... I think. They were black in color.

I was wondering what they are doing that far offshore, on lobster pots. It's funny, we try our best to keep these wonderful creatures alive, and pay so much for them, and here i am, pulling out dead ones by the dozen.

 

[mrme]

This is why they are easily becoming extinct.
They are very easy prey. =(

 

[pledosophy]

I wouldn't blame the tuna, seahorses have been prey from thouands and thousands of years.

The tons of dried seahorses being imported by asian countires for use as food and herbal remedy's have more to do with it IMHO, not to make any comment on another cultures food/ medical practices, lord knows I eat my fair share fo cow and salmon.

Tuna is one of the more common predators to seahorses. From the location the seahorses were probably northern erectus. One of the members here has found them at temps down to 42F. Kinda cool. (get it, 42F, cool, :lol: )

 

[JennyL]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13250589#post13250589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mrme
This is why they are easily becoming extinct.
They are very easy prey. =(

I really have to respectfully disagree with that statement mrme.

Nature's design is predator and prey, and has been this way from the beginning. It's a perfect design, one feeds the other.

But when humans enter the equasion, it can and often has thrown things out of balance.
In my opinion, over harvesting by the millions of seahorses for various reasons is the real threat to these creatures.

So finding a few seahorses that have been eaten by their natural prey is not the problem at all.

I am not into bashing any culture but over harvesting of any wild life , no matter what it is, is always a cause for serious concern in my opinion.

 

[philter4]

While I agree that humans collecting them doesn't help, collecting them isn't as big a problem as people make it out to be, one of the main reasons sea horses, at least here in FL, is environmental, years and years of fertalizing the sugar cane fields has degraded the ocean with run off so that bad species of algae are taking over and when a species like caulerpa takes over, nothing else can live in the environment.

 

[pledosophy]

It is well documented that in certain countries collection was the issue. They were literally pulling tons of dry seahorses out of the ocean for use in traditional Chineese medicine and for curious to be sold to tourist.

The problem developed more until the local fisherman had an incredibly hard time finding seahorses in there areas at all, which was causing an economic hardship to the region.

A group of seahorse researchers went to the country to survey what was going on and taught the locals how to farm there own seahorses using nets in the ocean so they would no longer have to pull them from the wild and they would be able to sustain there economy. It's a great start and the seahorses raised in this fashion are good for the use of curios or TCM IMO although they do not do so well for pets.

 

[Sk8r]

On the other hand, I used to decline eating mahi-mahi. Now I will turn predator myself. With butter.

 

[acrodave]

every thing have a predator...its called the food chain

 

[philter4]

Pledosophy, while I agree in some countries they are over collected for medicinal and for the curio trade, they are in trouble all over and many countries (Australia and all of the Americas for example) they are not collected for that trade, yet they are still in danger of becoming thretened or endangered. Maybe I played the human role down some, but over the entire range one of the bigest problems is habitat degradation.

 

[Clownfish29]

well, what I was finding was since there were so many of these seahorses in each of the stomachs, that there is a very healthy supply in the open atlantic ocean if this is a natural food of them. They must be living around the floating structures out there ( sargassum, floating wood, lobster pots, etc.) and maybe we do not know as much about their populations farther offshore, where there is not as much habitat degredation.

 

[mollymonticello]

That's pretty cool that you got to experience that, clownfish29. You know, I was thinking that seahorses don't look very appetizing...if I was a fish, I would probably think twice about eating one.

I wasn't aware that N. or S. Erectus were threatened.

Only one species of seahorse is considered to be endangered, and that is the Capensis, mostly due to freshwater run off and pollution in developing areas on the coasts of Africa.

But I agree that human consumption of dried seahorses and collection of dried seahorses for curios played a major role in the decline of other seahorse species populations.

 

[David123]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13257955#post13257955 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by philter4
Pledosophy, while I agree in some countries they are over collected for medicinal and for the curio trade, they are in trouble all over and many countries (Australia and all of the Americas for example) they are not collected for that trade, yet they are still in danger of becoming thretened or endangered. Maybe I played the human role down some, but over the entire range one of the bigest problems is habitat degradation.

There is no drama with horses in oz, we have a huge coastline, and all of our population will fit into the states biggest town.

OZ made them a cities listing purely for the future, its easy to undo a great start, but hard to fix a bad regulation.

You can collect syngs in OZ, same as before they became CITIES listed, you need to apply to the state government, state fisheries, federal gov if the prior two approve, and then federal fisheries.

Long process, but its doable, this was in place a very long time before CITIES.

There may be a very slim possibility of habitat destruction hurting some colonies of horses in OZ, but with thousands of miles of unpopulated coastline, very small price to pay.

In Sydney, our biggest town, you can go down to the public beaches, where they have erected shark nets, and swim out with goggles and see wild seahorses that live on the nets, so in this instance, humans have created an artificial world where it has attracted a new colony of seahorses. H. whiteii.