Seahorses face significant welfare challenges both in wild capture for traditional medicine and aquarium trades, and in captive breeding systems that often fail to meet their specialized needs.
Seahorses experience severe welfare harms during wild capture and the subsequent supply chain — stress, injury, and mortality rates are high in wild-caught animals. Those surviving to aquarium ownership often die quickly in inadequate conditions. Even purpose-built captive breeding programs must meet highly specific feeding, water quality, and social requirements that many hobbyists cannot provide. The combination of poor welfare outcomes and population-level conservation impacts makes wild seahorse collection an area where consumer choices have direct consequences for both individual animals and ecosystem health.