PBS Airdate: April 15, 1997
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TONY KAHN:Tonight on NOVA, into the realm of one of the most elusivecreatures of the sea, tiny, secretive. Seahorses reveal little of their fragileexistence. Now, NOVA takes you into a hidden world of elaborate rituals whereonly the male gives birth. Surprises abound in the kingdom of the seahorse.
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TONY KAHN:Enchanting, almost magical in appearance, the seahorse is longinspired myth and legend. They pulled the chariot of the Greek god Poseidon.And in China, they're considered charms of love. They have the majestic headof a dragon and a grasping tail of a monkey. Their skin, stretched over aknobby skeleton resembles the armor of an insect, and free roving eyes circlelike those of the chameleon. Yet seahorses are simply a type of fish. Butunlike other fish, or most animals on earth, they possess one truly magicaltrait. In seahorses, it's the male who gets pregnant and gives birth. Themysteries of the seahorse kingdom hold an irresistible allure. Led bybiologist, Amanda Vincent, this team is the first to track seahorse life in thewild. After rising at 4 a.m., they pull on scuba gear still wet from the daybefore and head into the cold and murky water of Sydney Harbor, Australia.Right off-shore in the shallows of this suburban bay lies a hidden realm, athriving seahorse colony Amanda Vincent found in 1989. She has by now spentthousands of hours swimming with these remarkable creatures.
AMANDA VINCENT:One response I get if I say I study seahorses is disbelief.People say, "They don't really exist, do they?" And more or less classify themwith the unicorn as a mythical animal and get positively excited when I say,"Not only do they exist but I work and live with them."
TONY KAHN:While they've captivated humans for thousands of years, the detailsof their secret lives are only now coming to light. They've remained mysteriesof nature in part because they're among the most elusive of animals. Thisbright yellow species is easy to spot. But the other seahorses that live inthe harbor are masters of disguise. They lie well obscured in thick sea grassbeds. In the underwater meadow, the only clue to their presence may be thecurl of a tail, or the glint of an eye.
AMANDA VINCENT:Seahorses are really very difficult to watch in the wild. Myfirst attempt was a screaming disaster where I couldn't see anything, and itwasn't until I developed this really clear image of what a seahorse looked likethat I was able to find them even in my sleep.
TONY KAHN:Camouflage is the best means of protection for these sedentaryfish. Some have the ability to change color to match their surroundings,whether muted sea grass or brightly colored corral. Within minutes, a solidpurple seahorse develops speckles when showered by the bubbles of an aquariumtank. If swept out into wide open seas, seahorses will seek shelter in anyavailable cover. This floating mat of weeds a hundred miles off the Floridacoast offers many hiding places. But predators also lurk here, so seahorsestake a further step to protect themselves. This Sargassum fish may be puzzled.His potential prey has not only changed color, but has also grown spikes thathelp him blend into his floating home. But seahorses generally stay close toshore. In the shallows of most coastal waters throughout the world, from NOVAScotia and as far south as Tasmania, some type of seahorse can be found, if youlook carefully. These unusually upright fish are designed for stability ratherthan speed. A dorsal fin that flickers up to thirty-five times a second helpsprecision movement through the grassy maze. But they spend most time anchoredto whatever hold is handy: sea grass, sponge or soft corral. They reach out tocatch small crustaceans floating by. Seahorses have neither teeth norstomachs, yet manage to digest thousands of tiny shrimp each day. Theypatiently watch as their prey come near, shift slightly to position themselves,and strike with a powerful suck. But the most intriguing thing about seahorsesis their social life. And only in the wild, spending time in their domain, canbiologists watch it unfold. Within a grassy meadow of Sidney Harbor lies acomplex social world, one that Amanda Vincent has come to know well. Everyyear, about a hundred seahorses swim here from deeper waters to spend theirseven month breeding season. Each is tagged with a numbered necklace. Thisallows Amanda's team to recognize every animal and observe the curiousrelationship between the sexes. In this world, the male is the homebody. Helays claim to a small patch of seabed, often clinging to the same blade ofgrass day in and day out. The one social interlude in an otherwise solitaryday is when his partner arrives for her morning visit. It happens likeclockwork, within a few hours of each dawn. And Amanda is there to take note.A female roams widely, passing through the territories of many males, but shehas eyes only for her partner. She knows what he looks like, and knows wherehe lives. After their initial greeting, each seahorse pair perform a gentleand familiar dance. The couple entwine tails and promenade through the seagrass together. This daily ritual cements the strong bond between them. Theymake the most devoted of partners, remaining in pairs and scorning all othersthroughout the breeding season and maybe beyond.
AMANDA VINCENT:This is quite extraordinary in the animal world. Usually, wefind that males are cheating madly and have a few other partners on the side,or females are off seeking more matings. And these seahorse, they're strictlyfaithful to one partner. And the way we've looked at this is by trackingindividuals through the sea grass bed.
TONY KAHN:The researchers spend up to six hours a day under water, makingrounds to check on each seahorse in the colony. Spending so much time withthese fish, Amanda hardly needs the tags to tell them apart. Each seahorse hasa distinctive look, and a crown on its head as unique as a thumbprint. Theyalso have their own personalities.
AMANDA VINCENT:Well, I was particularly fond of male 97. He was just ahandsome, big, solid seahorse who every now and then would throw a mildtantrum, and I liked that. Theoretically, we're never meant to ascribe anyhuman emotions to animals, but to be honest, when you're under the water forhalf of your waking hours with a particular community of animals, it's veryhard not to think that they have something in common with you and not todevelop some rapport with them. We just have to be very careful not to let thatsocial viewpoint enter the scientific research we're doing. And we try to bevery detached on the actual data.
TONY KAHN:In the turbulent waters of the harbor, the seahorses must clingtightly to their blades of grass. They feel comfortable only as long as theyhave an anchor.
AMANDA VINCENT:There's something rather extraordinary about having a fish holdyour hand. And seahorses just do that. If you want to handle a seahorse andyou offer it a finger, it stays calm and relaxed as long as it can hold yourhand.
TONY KAHN:Amanda carefully captures any new seahorse she finds in the colony.She leaves a clip behind to know where to return it. For the seahorse, thispatch of sea grass is home. Back on shore, each animal can be measured andtagged.
AMANDA VINCENT:His partner is female 124.
TONY KAHN:Across all species, the size of an adult seahorse ranges fromroughly half an inch to more than a foot. This Australian seahorse fits neatlyin a human hand. By studying them over time, the researchers have found thatseahorses grow continuously throughout their lives, which can be as long asfour years.
AMANDA VINCENT:And the snout length is 11.1.
TONY KAHN:A pregnant seahorse from the study site has given birth. Amanda'steam takes particular care with the tiny offspring, for these babies are unlikeany in the world. They were born from a pregnant male like this one. Over thecourse of his breeding season, this seahorse will father over a thousand young,all nurtured within his body. The male seahorse is distinguished from thefemale by a pouch which acts as a womb. In seahorses, it's only the male whogets pregnant and gives birth. It was this extraordinary fact that firstcaptivated Amanda. But to learn more about seahorse parenting took patience.
AMANDA VINCENT:I'd been studying seahorses for maybe five years before I eversaw a mating in the wild. And when you consider that my research was on theirreproduction, their mating, that was a big gap in my understanding. And whenfinally, after nine hours in the water one day, I stuck with it and got amating in full—full glory just in front of my mask, it was like finally—itwas all paying off. It was just wonderful.
TONY KAHN:For the first time, seahorse mating in the wild has been capturedon film. It begins with the greeting dance the pairs perform each morning.But then continues, like a slow moving minuet over the course of many hours.Each pair stays in tight formation. They move, tails entwined, to differentresting places within the sea grass bed. At times, they cling to the sameblade of grass and spin around it like a May pole. As the moment nears, themale seahorse twists his body, perhaps to signal that his pouch is empty andthat he is eager to mate. With a rear of their heads, they are ready for theattempt. The male is on the left and it's actually possible to see his pouchbulge as it fills with eggs from the female. Fertilization takes place withinhis body. Back on the grassy sea floor, the male sways gently to settle theeggs in his pouch. His partner has left the rest of the work to him.
AMANDA VINCENT:A lot of people find it really difficult to believe me when Isay it's the male that gets pregnant. And I think that's because we'remammals, and in mammals, by definition, it's the female that carries the young.Which raises a whole interesting perspective that we have to think aboutwhether the roles of males and females are permanent and defined or fixed, orwhether in fact there's quite a lot of flexibility.
TONY KAHN:In the animal kingdom, parenthood is a loosely defined term. Mostunderwater animals, like this sea urchin, invest little in each offspring.Their reproductive strategy relies on numbers rather than nurturing. This malereleases clouds of sperm into the open water, while a female sea urchin spawnsanother cloud with thousands of eggs. Some fish do protect developing youngfrom the dangers of the open water, but the means may strike us asunconventional. African cichlids incubate their offspring in their mouths.After sucking up eggs she's laid, the female cichlid entices the male in thiscircle dance. She may mistake spots on his fin for more eggs. When hereleases sperm, she takes some into her mouth. After ten days of brooding, theyoung will hatch. Here it's the female who endures this bizarre form of labor.But it's not unusual for male fish to do the mothering, like this one buildinga nest for eggs he'll fertilize. In over half of the fish families known tocare for their young, it's the male who invests the effort. This father is noexception. A close relative of the seahorse, pipefish provide clues to howmale pregnancy may have evolved. Pipefish vary greatly in size and color, buton close inspection, all resemble seahorses that have been stretched andstraightened out. A number of pipefish species form faithful pairs, and thosethat do engage in their own daily dance. The other close relatives ofseahorses are the equally magical sea dragons. These leafy sea dragons fromSouthern Australia float well disguised among the weeds. In both sea dragonsand pipefish, it's the male who carries the fertilized eggs to development.The eggs may be covered under a flap of skin or exposed on the belly of thefish. It's a form of male pregnancy, but the seahorse goes a step further,protecting the fertilized eggs in a womb-like pouch. Male seahorses may seemmaternal, but they produce sperm, and this, by definition, makes them male.But do they show the macho behavior that's the norm among males in the animalkingdom? Do they fight over females? Or are the females the aggressors? Toanswer these questions, Amanda Vincent set up a sort of dating service in alaboratory aquarium. She puts a single male into a tank full of females. Hispouch his empty and he's ready to mate. The females, ready and eagerthemselves, do compete for his attention, but the contest remains relativelytame. The situation is quite different when a single female is placed with twomales. The gentle seahorses begin snapping and circling one another, vying forthe chance to mate. Adding an additional male to the mix heightens thecompetition. Here, three determined suitors try to out-maneuver each otherwith tail wrestling, head butts, and body blocks, unusual moves for thesedocile fish. Even after one succeeds in winning the female's favor, the othertwo are so worked up, they continue chasing each other. For these males, asfor others in the animal kingdom, nothing spurs aggression like the challengeof a rival. In the wild, such aggression is rarely seen, but other forces caninterfere with mating. Occasionally, in the surge of turbulent waters, themale and female must struggle to position themselves. Some of this female'slarge clutch of eggs squirt into the sea instead of her partner. Despite theloss, the male settles down to tend the eggs he has received. In three weeks,he'll be ready to give birth. The King George Maternity Hospital in Sydneydelivers five hundred babies a month, but they've never seen a patient likethis one before. With the help of a narrow endoscope, Dr. Martha Hickey offersAmanda an astounding view right inside the pouch. The male seahorse has beenanaesthetized.
AMANDA VINCENT:OK. That's it. I think we're in. OK. Goodness, what am Iseeing now, I am a bit confused. Ah, there is something breaking loose becausethose are all the tissues they are wrapped in, each one has it's own pockets,you see the seahorse's eye, there's the tail and this—it's just breakingloose from its tissue pockets. These guys are ready to be born. Look at theeye. Can we get a better focus on that eye? There's the tail—ah!Brilliant. OK. Great, there's it's snout. See, it's breathing in the pouch.They're already, when they're born, they're fully independent, they'recompletely, fully formed seahorses. This is amazing.
TONY KAHN:The pouch is a self-contained world of its own. Each baby has it'sown tissue pocket and it gets oxygen and nutrients from the father's bloodstream. Surprisingly, their development is regulated by the same hormone as inmammals, prolactin. The male must withstand the constant activity of thesenear full-term babies. Some seahorses brood up to fifteen hundred young.
AMANDA VINCENT:He'll probably have about 150 or 200 young in there, somethinglike that. Maybe—maybe ninety, I don't know. I'll have to have a look. He'snot a very big male, so it may only be about ninety.
DR. MARTHA HICKEY:And they're very active inside. I'm surprised at how activethey are.
AMANDA VINCENT:Well, I think he was probably going to give birth tonight. Ihad no idea he was this pregnant. I thought he was getting towards pregnancy,but these guys are just amazing. Gosh. I've always wanted to look inside oneof these. This is a first.
TONY KAHN:The birth, itself, is equally remarkable. The labor begins atnight. It can last as long as two days. The male has contractions. He pumpsand thrusts to dislodge the young packed inside his pouch. Finally, the sealof the pouch bursts open, and tiny seahorses emerge. The fluid in the pouchhas changed throughout the pregnancy to become similar to salt water, easingthe shock for seahorse young. The day after his ordeal, the male is usuallyimpregnated again. Immediately after birth, the young seahorses leave theirfather's care, fully formed and independent. But few will survive the dangersof the ocean. Their first threat is starvation. They must catch thousands oftiny shrimp each day. They struggle to anchor themselves to the sea floor, butthey're often cast adrift on ocean currents. By six months, the survivors areready to find mates. At this size, they are stronger, but still not safe. Theyare prone to parasites and diseases, devoured by crabs and tuna, skates andrays. But the greatest threat to their survival lies beyond the ocean.Millions of seahorses are sold each year for use in traditional Chinesemedicine. And Hong Kong is the center of this trade. Amanda Vincent came hereto find out more. What she saw shocked her.
AMANDA VINCENT:When I see complete mounds of seahorses like this, I'mcompletely struck by the fact that I've never seen this many living seahorsesin my life, and here they are in a great big heap and I can't even imagine therange, the number of places they must have come from to fill buckets like this.And I know that there are many more buckets like this.
TONY KAHN:The seahorse trade is legal and unregulated, and demand forseahorses is growing rapidly.
AMANDA VINCENT:I guess I get frightened because I have no idea how manyseahorses there are in the world. I know that seahorse's populations aredeclining and I don't know at what rate. I just feel like we're not in controlof what's happening here.
TONY KAHN:Seahorses come from dozens of countries, from Belize and Brazil toVietnam and Malaysia. In a single year, over a hundred thousand were fished inFlorida alone where trawling boats are equipped to harvest a catch in quantity.This fisherman makes his living primarily from shrimp, but he keeps an eye outfor other goods caught in his net. As it skims over the ocean floor, the trawlmay trap or kill any number of animals that make their home in the sea grass.When shrimp are separated from the other sea life, seahorses are often part ofthe mix, including pregnant males. Even if they are kept alive, their youngwill not survive. Most of the seahorses found will be sold. A few injured areswept back with the debris. In other parts of the world, the fishermen may beless well-equipped, but they're even more determined to catch their quarry.Seahorse fishing is critical to the livelihoods of thousands in thePhilippines. In the village of Handumon, Nestor Botero is one of the fishermanwho hunts them. Six nights a week he heads out to a reef armed with a bucketand a lantern. The seahorses emerge from crevices in the corral during thenight. Even though it's dark, and Nestor is diving as deep as thirty feet onone breath of air, he is still able to find them. Once spotted, a seahorse iseasy to catch. Rather than fleeing, a threatened animal will grasp its perchall the more tightly, relying on camouflage and body armor for protection. Butall to no avail when the predator is an expert human fisherman. Most of theseahorses caught around the world end up in Hong Kong. So it was here thatAmanda, rather cautiously, began her investigation.
AMANDA VINCENT:You can't go in straightforwardly and say, "Hey, I'm here tofind out about the seahorse trade." Instead, you have to approach it quietly,so some days I was just a silly little giddy tourist who just wanted to buy ayellow seahorse for my brother who wanted one as a souvenir. And other days, Iwas interested in explaining that we wanted to culture seahorses and was therea market and to raise capital in the West, we'd have to know how big the marketwas and looking for serious figures and data. Nearly every importer we visitedin China needed a hundred kilos, five hundred kilos, a ton tomorrow. Are youable to get lots of seahorses? How many more seahorses could he use everymonth if we could supply them?
MERCHANT:They want more than three hundred to five hundred kilograms orendless, whatever you've got.
TONY KAHN:Five hundred kilograms, half a ton, is a lot of seahorses. In thePhilippines, fisherman like Nestor Botero may catch only a few each night, andthe buyers are hungry for more. A seahorse this size earns Nestor fifteenpesos, only about sixty cents. By the time they get to Hong Kong, weight forweight, seahorses are more valuable than silver. Bleached and dried, sevenseahorses are worth over seventy-five dollars. The mystique surrounding theseremarkable animals has been their downfall. They are sold as if there's nolimit to their medicinal powers, as everything from a heart disease cure to anaphrodisiac.
AMANDA VINCENT:Who uses these? Men or women, uses these mostly?
DOCTOR:Mainly men. They use it to become more manly. Something like that.
AMANDA VINCENT:So for sexual function, sexual disorders and things likethat?
DOCTOR:Oh not disorder, but just to become a little bit stronger—
AMANDA VINCENT:More virile. Yes.
DOCTOR:We believe that when they alive they stay together in the sea, I meanfor their lives. So we believe that they have a great ability for otherwisethey couldn't stay that long for life together.
AMANDA VINCENT:And so you believe that because they form pairs for life, itmust be because they're sexually happy, is that right?
DOCTOR:That's right.
TONY KAHN:One grave concern to Amanda is the move from the sale of wholeanimals to seahorses that are ground up for prepackaged pills and capsules.
AMANDA VINCENT:Seahorse genital tonic pills. And what's the ingredient inhere?
MERCHANT:They mix it with lots of other medicines.
AMANDA VINCENT:So seahorses and other things.
MERCHANT:And other things, as well.
TONY KAHN:These prepackaged medicines feed a fast growing market, drivenlargely by economic expansion in China. And they're used in other countries,as well.
AMANDA VINCENT:That one, is that Japanese?
MERCHANT:Yes, that's Japanese.
AMANDA VINCENT:So they must sell these in Japan, as well.
MERCHANT:Japanese like this a lot.
AMANDA VINCENT:The Japanese like—
MERCHANT:There's a very big market over there.
AMANDA VINCENT:The best estimate at the moment is that something like twentymillion seahorses are used every year in Chinese medicine alone. And that's aconservative estimate. I'm having to revise it upwards all the time. It isimpossible to know exactly what impact that's having on wild populations. Imean nobody else is underwater looking at seahorses.
TONY KAHN:Seahorses are collected for more than use in Chinese medicine.Hundreds of thousands are sold live for display in aquarium tanks. With theirextraordinary looks, it's no wonder that seahorses are collector's items, andthose that come in brilliant colors are particularly prized. Seahorses mightappear well-suited for aquarium life, but few adults thrive, and their youngfair even less well.
AMANDA VINCENT:I think it's really important to realize that any seahorse yousee in the aquarium or in captivity has come directly from wild populations.Very few are captive bred. And the way seahorses are traded right now, many,many of the seahorses that come into the aquarium trade are still juveniles.So, you're taking the very young seahorses from the wild populations beforethey can even get around to breeding. They get a lot of diseases. And it'sextremely rare for anybody to manage to raise young to adulthood.
TONY KAHN:Some aquariums have the skill and resources to care for seahorses,but most hobbyists who collect them do not. As this trade grows, survival ofseahorses in the wild is further endangered. The trip to Hong Kong helpedconvince Amanda that she had to do something. She found support to set up aconservation project in the Philippines, a small crusade to save the seahorse.She entered a remote world with little idea of the challenges ahead.
AMANDA VINCENT:I guess I didn't know when I came to the Philippines what I wasgoing to find. I'd never been to the Philippines until I started looking intothe whole seahorse trade issue.
TONY KAHN:She would soon discover just how vital seahorses are to this area.Nine hundred people live in the village of Handumon, and their lives revolvearound the sea. It might look idyllic, but this is one of the poorest regionsin the Philippines. By catching fish, Nestor Botero can feed his family. Butto earn hard cash, he has to find seahorses.
NESTOR BOTERO:I've been fishing seahorses for eighteen years. They're veryimportant to the livelihood of my family because I use them to buy food andmedicine.
TONY KAHN:Over half of Nestor's income is from seahorses, and with thismoney, he can buy rice for his family of nine. But there is trouble ahead.Each morning as the villagers compare catches, the buckets are nearly empty. Afew years ago, they would bring in as many as fifty seahorses from a night'swork. Today, they are lucky if they catch fifteen. It's a dire situation, forboth the villagers and seahorses.
NESTOR BOTERO:Seahorse fishing has changed over the years. Before, there werevery few fishermen. Now there are many more, and that's why the seahorses aredisappearing.
AMANDA VINCENT:If you asked the fishers what would happen if the seahorsepopulations totally collapsed, if there were no seahorses to catch, they almostrefuse to consider it because it's such a frightening prospect. One of ourmain jobs here is to make sure that we work simultaneously for the seahorsesand the seahorse fishers. It's actually quite easy because we want the samething as the seahorse fishers. We want there to be enough seahorses that youcan fish off a few without losing the entire species.
TONY KAHN:This scenario would work only if Amanda could convince thevillagers to radically change their fishing practices. Not surprisingly, shefaced some resistance. But at her side to help was Marivic Pajaro of aPhilippine conservation group, a biologist herself. She tried to enlist thevillager's support.
MARIVIC PAJARO:We were very hopeful that the project would go well. It'sjust that we had some doubts about the village accepting us, because we don'tknow them, they don't know us, especially there's Amanda, a Westerner, so awhite—a white lady, so they would call. We had to consult the village ifthey would be willing to work with us.
AMANDA VINCENT:The meeting seemed to be going pretty calmly until eventuallyone man, Nong Nestor, developed enough confidence to say, "What are you reallyhere for? What are you actually trying to do?"
TONY KAHN:Amanda didn't realize it, but there were rumors about her ulteriormotives. Handumon is a tight-knit community and the mayor of the village, inparticular, was suspicious.
GREGORIO BOTERO:When Amanda first came here, some people said that she waslooking for sunken gold, and we were all worried about the motives of herproject.
TONY KAHN:Amanda had to convince the people of Handumon that she went diving,not to find gold, but to learn more about the seahorses there. And ultimately,it was her seahorse expertise that was the key to gaining their trust. Shefound on her dives that the seahorses of the Philippines behaved much likeothers she knew from around the world. Pregnant males stayed put in their ownsmall territories. And their faithful partners were often at their sides.When she shared her insights about seahorse life with the local fisherman, thetide began to turn.
NESTOR BOTERO:I believe what Amanda said because I also see the male andfemale seahorses face each other underwater.
TONY KAHN:Amanda also had new things to teach them.
AMANDA VINCENT:I think a lot of people are really surprised that it'sactually the male that gives birth.
TONY KAHN:The women found this more amusing than men.
NANG LUDY:The seahorses are doing it right, so the males will experience thepains of the birth.
TONY KAHN:Amanda was on the right track, but her style had to be tempered.
MARAVIC PAJARO:She could get imposing, and we would get into arguments withher. She could be very excited and she would go go go. And I would say calmdown Amanda, your pace is too fast for us. So, in the end, we would settle it.We would understand her, she would understand us, so our partnership for now isgoing well.
TONY KAHN:The gradual approach began to pay off, as biologists and localpeople worked together to design a conservation plan. The old-timers ofHandumon had much to teach the scientists. They could point out areas wherevarious species once thrived and now were scarce. The villagers also agreed tohelp the project by showing the biologists their seahorses before they soldthem. This was a simple way of finding out the types and numbers of seahorsesthey caught, and where they fished for them. While the seahorses weremeasured, the biologists questioned the fishermen for extra details. One youngvillager has even joined Amanda's team. Milo Soscias used to catch seahorseshimself, and his knowledge of the fishing practice has made him invaluable.
AMANDA VINCENT:We got really worried because so many of the fishers werebringing in pregnant males. And when you take a male and kill him, you alsokill the young. You can try asking the fishers not to catch pregnant males,but realistically, if they leave them in the sea, somebody else will take them.It's just a fishery where everybody fishes everywhere. So we were trying tothink of some way where the fishers wouldn't lose money, but we would be ableto get those young into the wild.
TONY KAHN:Together with the fishermen, they came up with an elegant solution.Now, whenever a pregnant male is captured, he's placed inside a cage. Here,the protected male can safely give birth. The tiny newborn can slip awaythrough the mesh out into the open sea. The fathers, trapped inside, are thencollected. As the benefits of the project became clear, the villagers agreedto take a bold step: to set aside an area of the reef where fishing was bannedaltogether. This sanctuary will protect seahorses and all the other wildlifein its borders.
AMANDA VINCENT:So it's a complete sanctuary now. The sanctuary has only beengoing for about eight months now, I suppose it's been enforced. And what'sexciting everybody is how quickly we're starting to see results. All thefishers are talking about how many more fishes there are in there, and theseahorses are certainly recovering rather quickly. When we walk around thevillage, it's a source of pride that comes up over and over again that they aremaking a difference. So now, what we're trying to do is track and see what'shappening to the catches outside the reserve.
TONY KAHN:The villagers skilled in the art of spotting seahorses help thebiologists monitor their population. There is evidence that not only arenumbers booming inside the sanctuary, but there are more seahorses outside itsborders. The young born here apparently drift to other sections of the reef.But the very success of the sanctuary introduced a new problem. Poachers.More and more fishermen from neighboring islands entered the sanctuary to takethe rich pickings. The people of Handumon decided to put a stop to it, andwith Amanda's help, they obtained a new boat dedicated to patrolling thesanctuary. Each evening the boat heads out to protect the seahorses frompoachers.
AMANDA VINCENT:There's nowhere else in this part of the Philippines wherethere's an enforced sanctuary the way that the villagers have chosen to enforcethis one. And it stirred people up a lot. This village is now not allowingillegal fishing, they're patrolling all their waters, and their sanctuary,particularly carefully. So this has upset a lot of local people who justaccepted that illegal fishing or rules against illegal fishing would never beenforced. They never have been before, why would you think they would benow?
TONY KAHN:But Amanda had an even more ambitious plan. Fish farming. Now theHandumon villagers are building an underwater corral for a whole seahorsecolony. If it works, farming seahorses could one day replace fishing from thewild.
AMANDA VINCENT:These are the first pairs. Some of the fishers alreadypromised that they'd give pairs to put in this corral. So this was the firstpair that was brought in this morning, and you see, he's already pregnant, soit will be a good start.
TONY KAHN:Besides its conservation goal, seahorse farming could provide aneconomic base for the village. This corral will be big enough for dozens ofbreeding pairs. There's talk about one day collecting the young that are bornhere and raising them to adulthood in tanks on shore. But this will bedifficult because the captive young need a constant supply of live food. Eachday, they consume up to three thousand brine shrimp. The outlook for seahorsefarming is uncertain. But there is reason to hope that the future for seahorseconservation will be secure.
AMANDA VINCENT:We decided that we really needed to ensure that when we leaveas a team, which leave we will one day, there had to be something left behind.So we established a scholarship, a high school scholarship, whereby that personwould spend one or two days a week with us as an apprentice in marineconservation. We've been really lucky in our first scholarship student. Milohas just been an exciting find. He was a seahorse fisher, so he has a verystrong understanding of some of the problems of the seahorse fishery, but healso spreads a lot of our messages to other people.
TONY KAHN:Spreading the word has already paid big dividends. News of theHandumon project has reached neighboring villages, and they've started tochange their fishing practices, seeing conservation as a way to build updwindling seahorse populations.
AMANDA VINCENT:It's very exciting that obviously the villagers, themselves,are talking about this project in positive terms and spreading the ideas,because that's the way that we're going to expand the scope of the initiativesreally, really quickly, is if the village decides it wants to tell other peopleabout it. And that's obviously what's happening.
TONY KAHN:The people of this neighboring village have now set up their ownwildlife sanctuary. It's solid evidence that the efforts of Amanda's team arepaying off. While their motives may vary, the end goal of fishermen andconservationists may be the same.
AMANDA VINCENT:In general terms, there are two approaches to conservation.Quite a number of people feel it very important to protect the individuals ofthe species very closely by putting up fences or by putting trade bans on them.The other approach, I suppose, is just accepting that those animals cannot allbe protected, not each and everyone of them, and instead you need to worktowards ensuring that the population survive and just some individuals will bekilled and will die. The latter approach, I think, is more sustainable, sowe're working very hard to integrate what people need with what the animals,themselves, need and building for a future for both.
NESTOR BOTERO:We are collaborating in the project, and I am very happy thatwe are a part of it, because we believe that this project will increase thenumber of seahorses in the future. And these seahorses are very important toour families.
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