Seahorses are extraordinary fish with unique biology — males carry young in a brood pouch — and face severe welfare and conservation threats from habitat loss, bycatch, and the traditional medicine trade.
Seahorses face welfare harms from both wild capture and captivity. Wild capture for the traditional medicine trade involves stress, overcrowding, and dehydration — most dried seahorses were alive at point of capture. Bycatch in shrimp trawls traps seahorses in nets where they are crushed, asphyxiated, or crushed during sorting. In the aquarium trade, wild-caught seahorses have poor survival rates in captivity because their specialised feeding needs (live food, calm water, vertical holdfasts) are rarely met adequately. Habitat destruction deprives surviving wild populations of the seagrass and coral structures essential for feeding and reproduction, adding chronic stress to remaining animals.