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During Project Seahorse trade surveys conducted between 2000–2001, eight of the 11 fishers surveyed in Pakistan reported a 50% decrease in seahorse catch in 1999, while the remaining three fishers had noticed no change (A. Perry, unpublished data). However, it is unknown how much of this catch, if any, is comprised of H. jayakari.

Hippocampus jayakari has been caught at depths of 2–3 m. It is found in beds of seagrasses such Halophila spp. (Lourie et al. 1999).



This species may be particularly susceptible to decline. The limited information on habitat suggests they inhabit shallow sea-grass beds (Lourie et al. 1999) that are susceptible to human degradation, as well as making them susceptible to being caught as bycatch. All seahorse species have vital parental care, and many species studied to date have high site fidelity (Perante et al. 2002, Vincent et al., in review), highly structured social behaviour (Vincent and Sadler 1995), and relatively sparse distributions (Lourie et al. 1999). The importance of life history parameters in determining response to exploitation has been demonstrated for a number of species (Jennings et al. 1998).

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Trade surveys conducted by Project Seahorse between 2000–2001 indicated that the trade of seahorses in Pakistan appears to be relatively small, and is mostly limited to local collection for aquarium use (A. Perry, unpublished data). Israel reported that there is no trade of seahorses in the country, nor are there exports (CITES AC18 Doc 18.1). The size of the trade in this species in Oman, if any, is unknown.

The species might also be threatened due to the vulnerability of its shallow habitats to human influence. These habitats are often degraded by humans, and animals located in the habitat are vulnerable to incidental capture in other fisheries

• 5.4.6 Motivation Unknown/Unrecorded

The entire genus Hippocampus was listed in Appendix II of CITES in November 2002. Implementation of this listing will begin May 2004. Further research on this species biology, ecology, habitat, abundance, and distribution is needed.

• 4.3 Awareness & communications

There are no published data about population trends or total numbers of mature animals for this species. There is very little available information about its extent of occurrence or its area of occupancy. There have been no quantitative analyses examining the probability of extinction of this species. As a result, the assessors have insufficient data to properly assess the species against any of the IUCN criteria.

Hippocampus jayakari previously was listed in 1996 as VU A2cd under the 1994 criteria. This assessment was based on suspected past declines in occupancy, occurrence and habitat, as well as on potential levels of exploitation. In reassessing the species under the new criteria and with greater taxonomic understanding we find that no appropriate data on biology and ecology, habitat, abundance or distribution are available for this species. Further research is needed. Assessed as Data Deficient under the new criteria.

• Baillie, J. and Groombridge, B. (eds). 1996. 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. pp. 378. International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.
• IUCN. 2003. 2003 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 18 November 2003.
• Jennings, S., Reynolds, J.D. and Mills, S.C. 1998. Life history correlates of responses to fisheries exploitation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B 265:333-339.
• Lourie, S.A., Vincent, A.C.J. and Hall, H.J. 1999. Seahorses: an identification guide to the world's species and their conservation. Project Seahorse, London, U.K.
• Perante, N.C., Pajaro, M.G., Meeuwig, J.J. and Vincent, A.C.J. 2002. Biology of a seahorse species Hippocampus comes in the central Philippines. Accepted by Journal of Fish Biology. 2001.
• Vincent, A.C.J. and Sadler, L.M. 1995. Faithful pair bonds in wild seahorses, Hippocampus whitei. Animal Behaviour 50: 1557-1569.
• Vincent, A.C.J., Evans, K.L., and Marsden, A.D. 2005. Home range behaviour of the monogamous Australian seahorse, Hippocampus whitei. Environmental Biology of Fishes 72: 1–12.