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Sea horse roundup

A University of Tampa researcher catches, studies and releases the marine creatures whose populations are threatened worldwide.

By JANET ZINK
Published July 2, 2004

[Times photos: Skip O’Rourke]

A sea horse is measured and photographed by University of Tampa researcher Heather Masonjones, who has been studying sea horses for 13 years.

	A pipefish wiggles on the hand (see detail photo at right) of University of Tampa student Josh Scotten as he and fellow student Kevin Curtis collect pipefish and sea horses off Fort De Soto Park as part of a study.
	Tami Mayer holds a pipefish near a ruler while Heather Masonjones takes a picture. Masonjones is collecting data on sea horses and pipefish.

FORT DE SOTO - Josh Scotten and Kevin Curtis drag the framed net along the bottom of the lagoon then pull it up to examine its contents.

A slew of shrimp, a mass of sea grass, a handful of flopping fish and the ultimate prize: two pipefish and a sea horse.

They place the sea horse and pipefish into a bucket.

Scotten and Curtis repeat the task dozens of times, spending hours standing in chest-deep water. On a boat nearby, University of Tampa researcher Heather Masonjones measures and photographs the creatures. Then she returns them to the open water.

On this day, they'll record 11 sea horses and 143 pipefish.

Masonjones, along with the Florida Aquarium, recently received a $7,400 grant from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program to figure out how and where sea horses and their pipefish relatives live throughout Tampa Bay.

Sea horse populations around the globe are decreasing, largely because they're shipped by the millions to China for use in traditional medicine.

In response to the declining population, an international agreement went into effect last month to monitor trade of sea horses.

Masonjones' research will help with protection efforts by providing valuable information about creatures whose myth-like features capture imaginations but not the attention of scientists.

"Sea horses are threatened worldwide," she said. "But we don't know very much about the species."

Last year, Masonjones of Valrico surveyed sea horses in the Florida Keys. Since February, she has made 15 trips to study the fish near Fort De Soto Park and the Gandy Bridge. This summer, she is investigating the waters of Cockroach Bay and other sites.

It's tedious, but few could complain about the working conditions: a 27-foot boat near Fort De Soto, under a bright blue sky, breeze blowing, water cool and clear, no one else in sight.

This is precisely what prompted Masonjones, who has been studying sea horses for 13 years, to leave a tenured position at prestigious Amherst University in Massachusetts three years ago for a job at the University of Tampa. Here, she can get out of the laboratory and study sea horses that live in the waters along the Florida coast.

Community volunteers help with the research.

On this day, Scotten, a volunteer, and Curtis, a research assistant, pull up the net to reveal its contents.

Dozens of shrimp jump into the air. Little silver fish sparkle in the sunlight, and tiny jellyfish skim the surface. A black and gold, amorphous box fish looks up with doleful eyes. A squeamish volunteer turns up her nose at a slimy transparent ball. Curtis' trained eye notes it's just an egg sack.

Four sets of eyes and hands rapidly scan and sort through the net, eager to be the one to find an elusive sea horse.

"There's one," calls out a thrilled voice.

Almost as exciting is finding the squirmy pipefish.

Curtis picks up a bright green one and looks at its belly.

"A dominant female," he declares, before making a note on a waterproof chart and depositing her in the bucket. Pipefish resemble stretched out sea horses; they're biologically similar, but long and thin.

Back on the boat, Masonjones shines a blue light on the fish to see if any bear the markings she placed on 100 animals a week before. That will allow her to calculate about how many fish live in this lagoon. Later in the day, the team will examine the quality of the sea grass to figure out which beds the sea horses prefer.

Masonjones, a behavioral ecologist, said she became interested in sea horses because of their nontraditional sex roles. Females deposit the eggs in the males, who then fertilize the eggs and get pregnant.

Her latest research will provide a better understanding of how sea horses live in the wild, which is essential for managing their populations.

Anecdotally, scientists know that sea horse numbers are dwindling around the world.

In Tampa Bay, they've been harmed by the loss of sea grass, where sea horses live.

According to the Southwest Florida Water Management District, nearly half of the bay's sea grass has been lost since 1950.

In most parts of the world, sea horse populations are threatened by overfishing.

Hundreds of thousands end up living in aquariums, and an estimated 24-million sea horses are dried and sold for use in traditional Chinese medicine, according to the Vancouver, British Columbia, group Project Seahorse. They're used to improve, among other things, cardiovascular health and cure impotence.

"You go into Chinatown, and there'll be dried sea horses in glass jars. Supposedly, they cure impotence, balding, low milk in lactating women," Masonjones said. "They're a natural Viagra."

From 1995 to 2001, trade of dried sea horses for medicinal purposes increased from 45 metric tons annually to 75, according to Project Seahorse.

One recent study suggests that the popularity of Viagra may lessen the demand for sea horses.

Still, international protections for sea horses went into effect May 15 through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.

"That means their export from countries has to be documented and controlled. So rather than just trading them willy-nilly between countries we have to keep track of the numbers," Masonjones said.

The CITES listing doesn't classify sea horses as endangered; but they might become endangered without trade restrictions.

Under the new rules, sea horses exported live for home aquarium display and dead as souvenirs or for traditional medicine must be accompanied by a permit. The rules also require that only licensed fishermen harvest sea horses.

John Field, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, introduced the sea horse treaty to the CITES member nations in 2002.

The U.S. exports fewer than 1,000 sea horses every year, Field said, but all of them come from Florida's waters, where about 150,000 were harvested in 2002 and 2003 largely for aquariums and gift shops.

Here in Florida, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission monitors the capture of sea horses.

"A lot of them are just collected by divers who are involved in the marine life trade, and it looks like they catch them by hand and with nets," said Joe O'Hop, of the Conservation Commission's Florida Marine Research Institute.

In addition, laws allow recreational divers to collect up to 20 items in one trip, including sea horses, without reporting them to authorities.

"That could be a significant amount of harvest," O'Hop said.

The dwarf sea horses Masonjones studies aren't exported because they don't appear to have medicinal qualities. Plus, they're small, growing only 1- to 2-inches long. The largest species, found in the Pacific Ocean, top 12 inches.

Ed Matheson, a researcher at Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg which monitors the capture of sea horses in Florida, said Masonjones' work fills an enormous gap in knowledge about sea horses.

"She'll be generating some of the basic life history type of data that's missing," he said. "Life cycles, mating habits, habitat preferences, all those basic things you need to know to manage populations."

Masonjones' research, combined with protection efforts, may guarantee that sea horses won't end up relegated to the world of myth where they seem to have been born.

To volunteer to work on the study of sea horses in Tampa Bay, call Heather Masonjones at 253-3333, ext. 3801. Space is limited.

[Last modified July 1, 2004, 11:26:08]