New efforts to save seahorses and other marine life from extinction

Scientists and conservationists are working to breed seahorses in farms at aquariums and laboratories across the country in an effort to save the threatened creatures from disappearing.

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The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates that out of the almost 300 species in the family Syngnathidae (which includes seahorses, sea dragons and pipefish), roughly one-fifth are near-threatened or threatened with extinction. Pictured here is a lined seahorse at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla.

Michelle Fisher / Mote Marine Laboratory

Three factors account for the deaths of tens of millions seahorses each year: the Chinese medicinal trade, accidental catch by shrimp trawling and other fishing operations; and habitat destruction. Here, another view of a lined seahorse.

Michelle Fisher / Mote Marine Laboratory

Young seahorses use zip ties as hitching posts for their tails at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla.

/ Mote Marine Laboratory

Before the 1990s, seahorse farming was plagued by problems with feeding and disease. Researchers in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, have made strides in the last couple of decades, though getting the animals to reproduce remains challenging. Pictured here are lined seahorses at Mote Marine Laboratory.

Michelle Fisher / Mote Marine Laboratory

One challenge to breeding seahorses might be the fact that they aren’t promiscuous, and instead live in bonded pairs. Pictured here is a seahorse at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Mark Bromley / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Seahorses “do flirt a lot, but they’re actually faithful,” said Heather Koldewey, head of global conservation programs for the Zoological Society of London. Pictured here is a seahorse at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Rachelle Smith / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Seahorses are also distinct in that the males carry the young and give birth. Pictured here is a potbellied seahorse at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Michael Souza / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Aquariums, including Mote, mostly raise seahorses to populate their own exhibits and those in other accredited institutions. In some cases, however, researchers breed species with the hopes of reintroducing them to the wild, or to supply a broader commercial market. Pictured here are lined seahorses at Mote Marine Laboratory.

Michelle Fisher / Mote Marine Laboratory

The staff at the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which has raised 12 seahorse species, found that using a kreisel tank worked better than rectangular ones. The tank is a slice of a cylinder lying sideways, sandwiched between two flat sections of acrylic, and it kept the baby seahorses from getting trapped on the water’s surface. Pictured here is the aquarium's "There's Something About Seahorses" exhibit.

Mary Rose / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Seahorses aren't the only animals that aquarists are aiming to save through captive breeding. SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment has launched a program called Rising Tide Conservation that aims to promote captive breeding of marine fish to ease pressure on the world’s coral reefs. Pictured here is a porkfish, one of the species the park is raising.

Mike Aguilera / SeaWorld San Diego

The semicircle angelfish is another species SeaWorld is working to breed. This fish is not considered endangered, but destructive practices such as dynamite and cyanide fishing are harming tropical reefs from which they’re collected.

Mike Aguilera / SeaWorld San Diego

Judy St. Leger, who serves as SeaWorld’s director of pathology and research, said she and her colleagues recognize "that this is not a problem that can be resolved in one or two years. We’re prepared to be working on it for 10 or 20 years. ... We’re prepared to keep going in order to make a difference for the reefs.” Pictured here is a bluestriped grunt.

Mike Aguilera / SeaWorld San Diego

Seahorses live in low densities in the wild, so crowding them into a tank can stress them and lead to disease. Pictured here is a seahorse at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Mary Rose / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

The weedy seadragon is another species residing at the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif., became the world’s first aquarium to breed weedy sea dragons in 2001, from a progenitor named Big Daddy, but it repeated that feat only once, in 2003.

Bernadette Miller

The leafy seadragon is another species on display at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Jessica Crawford / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Scripps professor Greg Rouse recently received a $300,000 grant to launch the first-of-its-kind sea dragon breeding pilot program with the Birch Aquarium. Here, a leafy seadragon is displayed at Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Nigella Hillgarth / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

Another look at the marine life at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Robert Hyduke / Birch Aquarium at Scripps

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