Vietnamese expert pioneers techniques to raise sea horses
Vietnamese expert pioneers techniques to raise sea horses
By Robert Templer
NHA TRANG, Vietnam (AFP): Truong Si Ky spends his days as
matchmaker and midwife to a tank full of some of the rarest and
potentially most valuable fish in Vietnam -- the first sea horses
to be bred in captivity.
Ky, a scientist at the Institute of Oceanography in the
central city of Nha Trang, has pioneered techniques to raise the
strange marine beasts in an effort to save them from extinction
and possibly develop a lucrative export market.
By creating the right water and temperature conditions, Ky has
managed to get female sea horses to transfer their pouches of
eggs to males, which actually give birth to the young.
More importantly, he has found ways of keeping the animals
alive in tanks and has now raised three generations of sea
horses, the first time this has been achieved.
Sea horses bred in ponds could become an export earner for
Vietnam as one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the dried fish can sell
for up to US$800 in Hong Kong, making them one of the most
valuable maritime products.
They are used in China as a traditional medicine to cure
asthma, high cholesterol and kidney complaints. Many believe the
curious horse-headed fish are an aphrodisiac that can give a
boost to flagging virility.
Chinese markets buy 20 tons a year of the dried fish and
consumption has risen 10-fold in the past decade as the number of
people in China able to afford expensive remedies grows ever
larger.
The use of the fish in medicine goes back to Roman times when
the scientist Pliny the Elder prescribed the ashes of burnt sea
horses mixed with soda and pig's lard as a remedy for baldness.
In Europe in the 17th century the spiny creatures were eaten
by nursing mothers to improve their flow of milk. Scientists
later discovered sea horses contain high levels of the hormone
progesterone that stimulates milk production.
Their popularity in China, where they are boiled up with herbs
or preserved in alcohol, and the loss of their habitats in coral
reefs and mangrove swamps are now putting sea horses in danger.
Vietnam exports about four tons a year even though sea horses
are in the country's "red book" of endangered species. Most are
caught accidentally by fishermen, but Ky wants to see better
measures to protect them.
"In the Philippines, pregnant males that are caught by
fishermen are returned to the sea or kept in natural conditions
until they give birth," he said.
Sea horses have long intrigued biologists with their sudden
color changes and mating battles but they are not a species of
studs. "They're the most faithful animals in the world, they
never cheat on each other," said Ky.
But beyond scientific curiosity, Ky harbors a desire to use
his expertise to provide an income to fishermen who could raise
sea horses in ponds.
"The biggest difficulty is providing enough food for them as
they will only eat live food," he said.
They live mostly on a diet of algae that could be grown in
salt-water ponds but Ky has been unable to find farmers willing
to grow enough of the food to make the project commercially
viable.
Other factors such as disease -- sea horses kept in tanks can
be afflicted by tiny parasites -- have been overcome and only
about 30 percent die before they reach maturity and a marketable
length of eight centimeters (3.2 inches).
The fish cannot be raised commercially in ponds with shrimp or
crabs as they eat too slowly and cannot compete for food. Crabs
also have a tendency to nip off the sea horses' curly prehensile
tails, Ky said.
He hopes that within a few years his methods could become
commonplace as fishermen turn to "ranching" and the wild sea
horses can roam their sea grass ranges free and protected.