PHUKET: Etymological failures rarely re-direct a person’s life as drastically as a simple false assumption did for topflight seahorse skilled and marine biologist Lindsay Aylesworth.
Lindsay was ushered into the higher echelons of seahorse analysis while working on her doctorate together with her adviser Amanda Vincent – acknowledged because the main professional within the subject – and Project Seahorse at the University of British Columbia. Lindsay seems to complete her PhD by the tip of the 12 months. However, her fateful ‘mistake’ was made about eleven years prior, when she was an undergraduate studying overseas at James Cook University in Australia.
For the final challenge of a marine conservation course, students had to signal up to write down a conservation standing report a few specific marine animal. The options were listed under scientific pseudonyms on the professor’s door. Enter the hippocampus.
“So you had to go and join this random Latin name, and who knows the Latin names of fish as an undergraduate? I would argue nobody. Okay, maybe some individuals do, however not me,” Lindsay says.
“So there were some apparent ones, Delphinus delphis – oh, it’s a dolphin. All these had been taken, however I noticed hippocampus. It sort of seems like hippopotamus. I wonder if there are hippos that stay within the ocean?”
Lindsay can now affirm that hippos do not reside within the ocean.
However, Lindsay wasn’t far off, at least in relation to the scientific names. For both hippopotamus and and hippocampus, ‘hippos‘ means horse in Ancient Greek. However, ‘potamos‘ means river, and ‘kampos‘? Well, that’s ‘sea monster’. Given her knack for marine adventures, it’s probably more acceptable that Lindsay ended up with the ocean monster.
“I just realized, that happened in 2004. I’ve been on this seahorse kick for 11 years now.”
Lindsay first got here to Phuket after her associates survived the 2004 tsunami. They had been diving off Phi Phi when the wave washed over the island. She arrived with provides and then turned one of many first in a bunch of divers that have been licensed by PADI as instructors following the disaster.
Two years later, Lindsay made contact with Dr Vincent. However, she didn’t join Project Seahorse, acknowledged as the global leader on seahorse research, until 2012. Then, in 2013, Project Seahorse was requested by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) to kind a specialist group to advise on seahorses. Lindsay made the reduce.
Pay zero has a sweeping mission assertion: “To promote the long-term conservation of the world’s syngnathiform [seahorses, pipefishes and their relatives] and gasterosteiform [sticklebacks and their relatives] fishes by way of the illumination and alleviation of threats to wild populations and their ocean habitat.”
Also in 2013, Lindsay joined a staff from Project Seahorse which served as consultants to the Hong Kong government to do an assessment of the impact a controversial beach re-nutriment challenge might need on seahorse populations in the area. Final assessment: there can be minimal impact, regardless of the environmentalists’ issues.
“We additionally got here up with a mitigation plan to try to find all the seahorses within the area that was going to be developed after which move them to an identical habitat and monitor them. It can be a great chance for some scientific research about shifting seahorses from one habitat to another and also allow the seaside to be developed,” Lindsay says.
Finding the seahorses – renown for their camouflaging talents – would must be sorted out by the federal government at a later date. However, Lindsay’s most up-to-date journey introduced her face to face with a man who has a sixth sense for seahorses – Paul Ferber.
“He type of has this premonition of the place to search out seahorses. You bounce within the water with him and actually inside seconds or minutes find seahorses, which in comparability with some of the research we’ve accomplished in Thailand is superb,” Lindsay says.
“Paul runs a gaggle called Marine Conservation Cambodia and so they have been working in Cambodia for I imagine the last 5 or ten years monitoring seahorses at a number of the coastal islands. They have been asked to do so by the federal government.”
Lindsay was there last week to coach Paul and his group about how to give seahorses fluorescent ‘tattoos’ in hopes of tracking their numbers and curbing illegal fishing.
In Paul’s tow to ‘base camp’ on Koh Sep, off the coast of Kep and within swimming distance of Vietnam, Lindsay saw how severe the group was about protecting the thick, vulnerable seagrass beds in the area.
“They are working with the local fisheries staff to assist them enhance native enforcement and patrols of the realm. There are a lot of Vietnamese boats that are available and illegally fish in these areas in Cambodia.
“I wasn’t quite expecting to be a part of any of those patrols on my journey out there. One minute there was a Cambodian man chilling out in his board shorts and tank high, the following minute he’s placing on his official Fisheries Department uniform and unwrapping this tremendous rusty AK-47, as a end result of they noticed an unlawful fishing boat and wished to stop the boat and ask them to depart.”
Rough monsoon seas added to the wild nature of the occasions as they unfolded earlier than Lindsay and a group of British undergraduate students becoming a member of Paul for some terrestrial research.
“There was so much occurring and at one point they have been like ‘keep your arms contained in the boat, stay low guys, keep low’. Eventually, the fishermen pulled up the online and dumped the fish back into the ocean.”
It hasn’t been all seahorses for Lindsay. She’s carried out the turtle rodeo, hand released 1-meter-long juvenile lemon sharks, jumped for dugongs… the list goes on. Here in Thailand though, Lindsay is getting into the final phases of a three-pronged seahorse sustainability venture, which included on-location diving for seahorses, interviewing fishers and researching the seahorse export enterprise (story here).
“Project Seahorse and I are wrapping up a project with the Fisheries Department to help them assess the sustainability of their seahorse exports.
“We at the moment are on the ultimate analysis stage and reporting back to stakeholders and colleagues phase, which is why I’m again in Phuket, the place I based myself for the initial analysis phases of the venture.”