SEAHORSE AND PIPEFISH RESOURCES IN CHINA  

Among the 49 seahorse species described in the world, so far sixteen species have been found along the China's coast, and most of them inhabiting the shallow seabeds in southern China.  Seventeen pipefish are also in this area (Fig. 1). These species have been the main source for the Chinese traditional medicine for many decades. They are frequently taken in as trawl bycatch and are vulnerable to destruction and degradation of the habitats, leading to sharp decline of wild stocks of the fish in family Syngnathidae.

Aquaculture of pipefish is still not in a scale in China, but seahorse culture has been developed in China since 1970's to meet the demand of the heavy trade and reduce the pressure on the overexploitation of the wild populations. During the last decade, the seahorse production has increased dramatically although still can not meet the market requirement.

We have carried out the aquaculture, biology and conservation of the fish in Syngnathidea for many years, However, the seahorse aquaculture is our point. We focused on many bottlenecks: the reproductive efficiency of parent seahorses and survivorship of the juveniles. To increase the reproductive ability, we have evaluated the reproductive behavior, physiological traits of seahorses. After knowing the basic theory of seahorse aquaculture, we set up a large scale culture mode, which was based on the traditional farms, through adding some new techniques. So far, twenty million seahorses can be produced every year in China, which has decreased greatly the pressure for the wild seahorse stocks along the China's coast.