A comprehensive program of conservation measures needs to be implemented urgently if seahorses and the fisheries that depend upon them are to avoid a crisis. Seahorses can be expensive. Japanese consumers appear to pay the most for a much smaller seahorse. Seahorses have horse-like heads atop upright bodies, long tubular snouts and eyes that swivel independently. Among the approximately 150 recorded scientific names, there are probably only 35 true species.
Some seahorses have yet to be named, and existing names are undergoing a major revision.
Seahorses are caught by hand, scoop net or small seine, primarily by artisanal or subsistence fishers. They are also a by-catch of trawl fishing. Only Tasmania in Australia fully protects seahorses, although they are included in the French, Portuguese and Vietnamese Red Lists of Threatened Animals. Trawling is banned in the coastal waters of Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand, which affords seahorses some indirect protection. Seahorses are thought to have evolved at least 40 million years ago, with many tales about magical and medicinal properties woven around them.