March 04, 2023 08:58 pm | Updated March 05, 2023 11:23 am IST - GUWAHATIGUWAHATIExtensive fishing off the Coromandel coast could be forcing the great seahorse to migrate laboriously toward Odisha. The study was based on a specimen of a juvenile great seahorse, or Hippocampus kelloggi, caught in a ring net and collected from the Ariyapalli fish landing centre in Odisha’s Ganjam district. “Despite the ban on fishing and trading activities on seahorses from 2001, clandestine fishing and trading still take place in India. This creates immense pressure on the seahorse populations that have a high dependency on local habitats to maintain their extensive and long-life history traits,” it said. But the great seahorse is not migrating in large numbers, as the Odisha coast does not have coral reefs or seagrass meadows that the species can call home, except within the Chilika region, Mr. Mishra said.

Source: The Hindu March 05, 2023 02:13 UTC