We wanted to know the conservation status of seahorses, pipefishes and seadragons (syngnathids) at the national level and what, if any, national regulations exist to protect them? To this end, we spent weeks scouring literature, websites and government documents to determine which countries had assessed the conservation status of syngnathids at the national level.
Global assessments alone just aren’t enough
Discovering the hidden life of the Knysna seahorse
The Knysna seahorse is the most threatened seahorse in the world. It was the first seahorse to be listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2004. It is no surprise that this seahorse is so threatened, seeing that it is only found in 3 estuaries along the south coast of South Africa. Even though there have been various studies on the Knysna seahorse in the past, we don’t know much about its life history – how fast does it grow, how far does it move, how many are there?