When the impotence drug Viagra was launched in 1998, few people could have foreseen the seismic impact its introduction would have on the underwater existence of a peculiar-looking and sexually ambiguous member of the Hippo-campus genus.
Seahorses have for 600 years been used in traditional Chinese medicine as a cure for impo-tence, served up in rice wine, mixed up raw with herbs or dished up in soup as a source of potency and virility.
Rather than diminish its appeal, the arrival of Viagra appears to have spurred a huge increase in demand for impotence remedies using seahorses as a cheaper alternative to the western wonder drug that was making headlines around the world.
Around 25 million seahorses a year are now being traded around the world -- 64 percent more than in the mid-1990s -- and environmentalists are increasingly concerned that the booming trade in seahorses is putting the creatures at risk.
Just this month, seahorses were added to a global watch-list of endangered species, obliging 161 countries and territories around the world to monitor the trade in seahorses and prohibit the trade in any specimen under 10cm in length.
There is an irony in the use of seahorses as a means of boosting virility. Modern research has established that, if anything, the male of the species is more in touch with its feminine side than anything else in the animal kingdom.
Seahorses are unique in being the only species where the male gets pregnant. The female injects eggs into the male, who has a pouch where the eggs are fertilized and carried for up to four weeks until they are ready to be born.
Seahorses can also lay claim to being the most romantic creature on the planet, performing a dainty daily underwater dance with partners and generally staying faithful for life. Experts have found this to be the case even if they are placed in a tank full of single, available seahorses of the opposite sex.
Increasing numbers of sea-horses are now finding themselves premature widows and widowers, however, as the demand for seahorses for use in traditional Chinese medicine continues to expand. By 2001, the last year for which comprehensive figures are available, global consumption had reached 70 metric tonnes, equivalent to 25 million seahorses compared to just 45 metric tonnes seven years earlier, and there is every sign that this trend is continuing.
Samuel Lee Kwok-hung is the Hong Kong-based representative of the Marine Medicinals Conservation Program, a joint initiative by TRAFFIC East Asia and the US-based research group Project Seahorse. He says rising demand for traditional medicine alternative to impotence drugs like Viagra had pushed up seahorse consumption. Most seahorses are imported through Hong Kong and Singapore.
"The majority of the demand is from China," he said, explaining that seahorses are used to treat asthma and other conditions as well as impotence and sexual dysfunction.
"With China becoming more and more open for foreign investment and for exporting products out of China ... the trade in traditional Chinese medicine is on the whole increasing," Lee said.
Project Seahorse is not calling for an end to the use of seahorses in traditional Chinese medicine. In developing countries it is often the only affordable form of treatment and its rise in popularity along with the Viagra phenomenon in the west is understandable.
What's more, the medicines they are used in appear to be effective and boast six centuries of satisfied customers.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS