Seahorse workshop

The International Workshop on Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Implementation for Seahorse Conservation and Trade brought together over 40 participants from 9 countries, with representatives from CITES Parties, the CITES Secretariat, fisheries agencies, non-governmental organizations, industry, academia and public aquariums. The goal of the workshop was to assist countries in identifying sustainable management options for seahorse fisheries and addressing the CITES permitting requirements for trade under the new CITES Appendix II listing of all seahorse species that went into effect in May 15, 2004.

Some of the recommendations from this workshop include:

• Interim short-term voluntary measure of a universal minimum standard length for export (i.e., 10 cm);
  
• Limits on the total volume of trade to current levels;
  
• A cap on new licenses whenever there is clear evidence that seahorse populations are being overexploited and/or are diminishing;
  
• Increased efforts to map, characterize and assess seahorse habitats, and implementation of fishery dependent and fishery independent monitoring programs;
  
• An assessment of the percentage of existing protected seahorse habitat, and identification of additional protected areas based on seahorse life history and ontogeny was thought to be a primary tool that could be used to make a non-detriment finding for non-selective (seahorse bycatch) fisheries;
  
• A need for testing and evaluation of different management scenarios through an adaptive management process depending on the characteristics of each fishery;
  
• Certification or registration of captive breeding facilities, along with experimentation in methodology to tag captive bred seahorses to improve the capability of law enforcement at differentiating wild from aquacultured species; and
  
• Specific reporting requirements (e.g., by weight) and packaging for seahorses (e.g., separation by species) in shipments.

The Workshop Proceedings include background information on seahorse biology, trade and management measures for wild harvest, country status reports, and working group deliberations. The document is now available:

• Cover page, Executive Summary,Table of Contents, and Introduction;
• Working Group Reports;
• National Reports - Australia, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, and the United States;
• Biology and Taxonomy, Summary of International Trade, Management Opportunities and Assessing Overfishing;
• CITES Appendix II Listing Proposal for Hippocampus, Workshop Agenda, and List of Participants; and
• the Full Proceedings.

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