BP Spill Endangering Dwarf Horses

[physicsgeek]

Sux:

World's smallest seahorse faces extinction after BP oil spill | Environment | guardian.co.uk

 

[Chris_150G]

Damn. That sucks.

 

[Smitty]

That's messed up.

 

[Bifferwine]

Poor horsies :(

 

[yote]

How would you even put a price on something like that? JMO.But that should be enough to completely ban BP for even doing bussiness in the United States.

 

[Cottonwood]

I hope they have a bunch to breed. Maybe if they can catch a bunch of mated pairs they can keep them producing for the next five years or so and then try to reintroduce them to spur growth in the future when the sea grass is back.

 

[cageburn]

UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All those jerks on tv saying we cannot tell you what long term effects this will have if there are any. They know damn well whats going to happen. They just dont want to say it! I feel so bad for them poor little seahorses. Some would argue that even if those seahorses went extinct that the natural balance and the food chain would correct itself. Then there are some like me who believe even if the smallest creature on earth went extinct it would have devistating consequences for other species as well.

 

[yote]

UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All those jerks on tv saying we cannot tell you what long term effects this will have if there are any. They know damn well whats going to happen. They just dont want to say it! I feel so bad for them poor little seahorses. Some would argue that even if those seahorses went extinct that the natural balance and the food chain would correct itself. Then there are some like me who believe even if the smallest creature on earth went extinct it would have devistating consequences for other species as well.

Your exactly right Brock.The entire food change starts with the smallest and works its way up.
Just another example of humans putting themselves and their wallets before the enviroment and wildlife.:pissed:

 

[cageburn]

+1 yote

 

[vonjankmon]

This is where we need to step in. If the population in the wild is in danger anyone who has some of these little guys in their tanks are potentially part of the solution to one day re-seeding the species in the wild. The aquarium hobby takes a lot of flak for taking animals out of the wild but frankly as quickly as we are destroying our oceans we may be the only saviors of species that no longer exist anywhere but in our tanks.

Very sad state of things, especially when you know that BP will do nothing to attempt to remedy the problem they caused. Some how I do not see them funding a Dwarf Seahorse Foundation to breed them in captivity in large numbers for the day when they can be released into a recovered Gulf of Mexico.

 

[Picasso]

Von, do you have any idea what we can do?

C

 

[vonjankmon]

I think the biggest thing is to educate people as much as possible. If someone buys or is interested in buying dwarf seahorses making sure they can keep them successfully for years and hopefully breed them is the best thing we can do in my opinion. Seahorses have a rap for being difficult to keep, I do not really think that is true. I think a better statement is that they are different to keep.

You'd never buy a large Angelfish for a 40 gallon tank or put a mantis shrimp in you tank and hope that it wouldn't kill all of your crabs. Seahorses really just have a few more "rules" or "requirements" and I think that if people were aware of that they would be

1) More inclined to purchase them.
2) Have better luck keeping and hopefully breeding them.

I hear all the time that you "have" to keep seahorses in a species tank. That is the easiest way to do it if you don't have more information but there are plenty of fish that you can have with seahorses. The information on what fish live well with them and what fish could with some work needs to be readily available to people. And really the only special equipment you need to keep seahorses beyond any other type of saltwater fish are foam covers for the power heads, about $2 worth of extra equipment.

Wow this post got a lot longer than I thought it would be. I am also hoping that nature is going to amaze us and that the dwarf seahorses in the gulf of mexico will rebound years from now when the gulf is able to recover a bit. Sometimes nature is impressive in its ability to survive and if not maybe at that time there might be a significant enough genetic population of dwarf seahorses in captivity to try and restore them in the wild. I also doubt that the dwarf seahorses will be the only potential casualty of the BP disaster

 

[little_fish]

I think the real danger lies with pico seahorses. So far no one has been able to keep them in captivity, let a lone breed them. The dwarfs commonly breed in home aquariums and many keepers have completed the life cycle with them. Research needs to be done on the corals they live in, their life cycle (some of them have the female carry and deliver eggs!) and then let some of the more successful seahorse breeders and coral keeper attempt to propagate them.

 

[Picasso]

I think the biggest thing is to educate people as much as possible. If someone buys or is interested in buying dwarf seahorses making sure they can keep them successfully for years and hopefully breed them is the best thing we can do in my opinion. Seahorses have a rap for being difficult to keep, I do not really think that is true. I think a better statement is that they are different to keep.

I agree 100% with you! horses have gotten a bad rap for so long!

I hear all the time that you "have" to keep seahorses in a species tank. That is the easiest way to do it if you don't have more information but there are plenty of fish that you can have with seahorses. The information on what fish live well with them and what fish could with some work needs to be readily available to people. And really the only special equipment you need to keep seahorses beyond any other type of saltwater fish are foam covers for the power heads, about $2 worth of extra equipment.

I mostly agree with you here. When I give advice to 'newbs' or people just getting into horses, I think they absolutely do need to be in a species specific tank. This is because of the reason you mentioned before, they are different to keep. Once you've kept a pair for a few months, you get the hang of things and understand exactly what types of tankmates would be ok for cohabitation with your horses. In the context of the conversation, how can hobbyists help the seahorse population, I think that horses need to be in their own tank, you're talking about breeding here. Pregnant males and fry thrive better when other fishes aren't trying to eat them or bug them.

I feel like I've stepped up on the soapbox many times to try and dispel the notions that horses are wimpy, high maintenance, or otherwise fussy creatures. Actually, they are quite hardy and tolerant creatures.

I do, respectfully, disagree with you in the big picture though. I believe, in my opinion, that a sudden increase of hobbyists adding horses to their tanks would cause overfishing in the wilds. If we could get a sudden increase of informed breeders, we could make a difference!

C

 

[Aquagrrl]

If you feel strongly about this, I suggest signing the petition. It will go directly to BP:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/813/962/800/

Re the overall fate of dwarf seahorses; though the spill is not good news for them, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The big news is that there was just recently a study of young fishes from seagrass bed, and their appears to be no noticeable effect in most places. That's not to say there aren't other long term effects we're not seeing yet, but the immediate damage seems to be minimal.

The other bright piece of news is that some of the dwarf seahorses stronghold is not affected by the oil spill. The Indian River Lagoon is famous for hosting both dwarf seahorses and H. erectus, and hasn't seen a drop of oil yet. In fact, a much bigger threat is every day litter as well habitat loss. I recently visited the air, and the amount of human refuse is just gross and disheartening. But we don't hear about that every day because its insidious and it creeps so it doesn't make the big headlines. Here is a sad and stunning example: WaterNotes Blog Archive 392 Butts On the Beach (read the whole blog, though, its really amazing to see first hand the mess our waterways are in.)