Each day, seahorse mates sidle up to each other and, with heads tucked coyly, begin a sensual dance, often changing colour as they move. They gyrate like this for six to 10 minutes every morning throughout the male's pregnancy. But Vincent hasn't won the Rolex Award for her science. Instead she has been cited in for her efforts to preserve seahorses. Specifically, it was Vincent's work in persuading a fishing village in the Philippines to conserve and manage seahorse populations, that caught the attention of the award's selection committee.
Seahorses are big business.
The world trade in seahorses is conservatively estimated at more than 20 million fish a year. In Asia alone, nearly 16 million dried seahorses are traded annually, primarily for traditional Chinese medicine and aphrodisiacs. At least 40 countries trade in seahorses. With thousands of subsistence fishers around the world dependent on seahorses for a large portion of their annual income, the effects of overfishing have become evident. The co-founder of Project Seahorse, an international initiative aimed at protecting seahorses, Vincent decided to work with the fishing communities themselves.