This farm was started 14 years ago to help preserve seahorses, which are becoming more rare all over the world. A side benefit to their intensive study has been to produce seahorses for home aquariums that can actually thrive in that environment. Previously, seahorses were caught in the wild. They are carnivores that prefer live food, and could not adapt.
This is a large tank of juvenile seahorses (seafoals?). They have a net at the bottom of the tank that they can wrap their tails around, but they are very social and prefer to hang onto each other. When they are mature, they will pair up and stay with the same mate. At the juvenile stage they're still dating.
This is a pregnant adult seahorse, a male. In one tank I saw a female with her tail wrapped around the male's neck. She was dragging him behind her like Daisy Mae and Lil' Abner.
The guides at the seahorse farm are scientists who are also good speakers. The tours are very informative, the guides can answer any question you throw at them because they're very knowledgeable. At the end of the tour, they help you "hold" a seahorse. Below, Jonathan has his hands in the water. The guide has herded a small seahorse onto his fingers, where it wrapped its tail and is happily perched.
See the close-up below. The horse Jon is holding is named "Lava."
Each guide has his or her own tank of demo horses that they're familiar with. Our guide said Lava is a really friendly horse that comes swimming right over to people. Obviously this wouldn't be an asset in the wild. The farm horses are not released into the wild, their goal is to stop the collection of wild born animals so those populations can recover. Horses are not sold to Hawaiians because they want to prevent people from releasing foreign animals into Hawaiian waters. The farm raises 25 species, including the native Hawaiian species.
The farm is also home to 4 Australian Leafy Sea Dragons. This is not my picture, we were only allowed to peek at the Sea Dragons for a few seconds, and could not take pictures of them. I found this one on the internet.
The farm had a large donation and was able to purchase 4 of these. They're $10,000 each. The prices for regular seahorses are between $75 and $400.
We enjoyed the tour at the seahorse farm. The facilities are made for the seahorses, NOT for the tourists. Tourism, I think, was an afterthought to help provide some income for this small, privately-owned business.
5 comments:
Good heavens! What an amazing creature the Australian Leafy Sea Dragon is! Not sure about your second picture though Jan. Posting lewd photos of sea horse orgies is probably against the law.
No no, those youngsters in the second photo are not doing anything lewd, they're too young. They're dating. Not in the Hollywood sense, either, they're just going to the movies and out for a hamburger.
The Leafy Sea Dragon is one of those animals that you look at and think, "I couldn't have created that in my wildest imagination." The Sea Rider people are working very hard to create perfect conditions for theirs. They believe that it's crucial to desensitize them to some degree, so they won't panic and injure themselves if they accidentally see a tourist. So we were all allowed to peek for a few seconds and then they replaced the curtain over the tank. They said that the females laid eggs last year but the males didn't know what to do with them, they were too young. Leafy Sea Dragons don't reach breeding age until they're 5 years old, which will be this year. Our guide said they expect everything will work out well this year and they'll finally have some domesticated babies.
Can you imagine what a fine world we might have if it was easier to raise Leafy Sea Dragons and harder to propagate humans?
That's awesome. :-)
Cool stories about the Sea Horses!
Thank you!
Linda
I love these dear little things. They so unique aren't they?
Cheers
Helen
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