Seahorses face threats from the aquarium and traditional medicine trades alongside habitat loss. Their unusual biology makes them particularly vulnerable to capture stress and captive welfare problems.
Seahorse welfare involves both capture-related welfare harms and the chronic welfare problems of inappropriate captive environments. Wild capture involves trawling and other destructive methods causing injury and stress. Seahorses are particularly vulnerable to transport stress due to their sensitivity to temperature and salinity changes and their inability to recover quickly from physical exertion. In aquariums, they require specialized live prey feeding, appropriate conspecific social settings, and low-flow environments with adequate attachment structures. Many retail purchasers lack these capabilities, resulting in short survival times that represent prolonged dying rather than rapid death. Captive-bred seahorses from responsible breeders are adapted to non-live prey and captive conditions, making their welfare outcomes substantially better.