A long-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus guttulatus) is the first patient of its kind to enter the Fundació Oceanogràfic’s Sea Animal Recovery and Conservation Area (ARCA) after being stranded on El Altet beach in Alicante. At the marine hospital, the animal underwent various examinations, similar to those carried out on sea turtles, in order to be able to diagnose the problem and carry out the necessary treatments. After several weeks and having recovered, the seahorse returned to Calpe waters this Thursday. The long-snouted seahorse is included in the Spanish catalog of endangered species.
It was some bathers who spotted it near shore, stranded it, and alerted the El Altet Interpretation Center. The technicians of the NGO Ambiens, as part of the Seahorse project for the monitoring and conservation of seahorses, were able to save it and take it to the Valencia aquarium complex for recovery. There it stayed near a posidonia meadow, an area where this species lives.
According to the Fundació Oceanogràfic, under no circumstances should a seahorse stranded near the beach be touched. “Very few of these tiny animals have been able to evoke the sympathy of people like seahorses and also the allure to sadly turn them into a consumer item as a souvenir,” the organization said in a statement.
“This excessive demand and other factors such as accidental capture and habitat destruction have resulted in some Mediterranean species being placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species,” they add. For this reason, study, protection and conservation actions have been carried out, but this is the first time that a seahorse has been rescued and subsequently reintroduced to the sea on the coast of the Valencian Community.
The Fundació Oceanogràfic, as part of its conservation of species, maintains a collaboration agreement with the NGO Asociación Ambiens to carry out awareness and research projects with which it seeks to disseminate information on the current lack of knowledge on the conservation status of seahorses in the Valencian Community.
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