Endangered Seahorses End Up as Poultry and Fish Feed

[Sea Save Foundation]

In India, seahorses, small fish and sea cucumbers are caught as by-catch from bottom trawlers who don’t target any particular species. They are then sold as poultry feed, fish oil and fish feed. In the year 2000, India exported 10 tons of seahorses, which equates to 4 million seahorses. This is clearly unsustainable, but there are not enough studies and there are no records of how much by-catch (including seahorses) is caught.

Read more here (story #3).

 

[kelemvor]

Dubious at best. The article contradicts its-self:

The capture of the seahorses came to light during a study by Tanvi Vaidhyanathan, a researcher from University of British Columbia, Canada. But with no records with the state fisheries department about the marine resources, no one knows the exact numbers at stake here.

Tanvi said before the year 2000, the sea-horses were not protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection (WLP) Act of 1972. Data collected during that period showed that the Marine Products Export Development Authority had exported 10 tonnes of sea-horses, which means a whopping 4 million sea-horse specimens.

So.. he admits there is no data, then goes on to claim such a massive number? I have no doubt that seahorses are caught as by-catch, but I'd be surprised to hear there were that many sea horses in one area, let alone that many caught as by catch. I think it's a pseudo-journalist pulling numbers out of his behind and smearing them onto an article. Or, maybe I just missed the enquirer article where Elvis Presley showed up and provided the statistic.

I'm all about saving the critters, but doing it by just making things up and publishing them as if they were true is not a good way to go about it.

 

[Wookie]

This is excellent news. I've seen the trash that shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico toss overboard 3 times a night. That the Indian fishermen are using their bycatch as cat food is outstanding. I've never understood why someone doesn't smack bycatch in the Gulf.