Yesterday I wrote about the exciting projects that are coming up, one of which looks at the Knysna Seahorse (Hippocampus capensis). The next two weeks I will be in the south of South Africa, where my friend Louw and I will to try to learn more about this endangered species. I promised I would try to give you frequent updates about what is going on, so here is the first of this fieldwork-mini-blog series.

I am extremely lucky that I get to travel to amazing places for my work, but sometimes the traveling alone is almost as much adventure as the actual work. Last night’s flight was late (not too much, just over an hour), but it meant that I’d struggle to make my connecting flight. It turned out there was no need to worry, since the domestic flight I was supposed to take had been cancelled altogether! Luckily I got a place on a different flight a few hours later (with “Mango Air”) which brought me to my final destination, George. In George I got picked up by Louw, and after a minor struggle to get all our equipment in the car, we drove off to the first fieldwork location, another 5 hour drive from the airport.

Arrival in George, with the very orange plane of Mango Air

Which brings us to the reason why we are doing this project, the Knysna seahorse. This species is quite special, but not necessarily for the right reasons. It only occurs in a few estuaries in the very southern tip of South Africa, in the Knysna region. Since it is so isolated, and only occurs in so few places, any environmental impacts can have a big effect on the species. Because of this unique situation, the species is listed as “Endangered” in the IUCN Red List.

You might be wondering “That’s all fine, but what are you two going to do about it?”. The main goal of this project is to figure out exactly WHERE the seahorses live, and if there are places where they are present that might have been overlooked in the past. Finding (or just as important, NOT finding) these new places are important for managing this species. We will do this not by diving and looking for them, but by using a shiny new method called “Environmental DNA” (or “eDNA” for short).

The eDNA mobile

I will explain what exactly eDNA is in a future blog, but we will basically be scooping up water and then filtering that water to find traces of seahorse DNA. These traces will tell us whether or not seahorses are present in the estuary we just visited. The benefit of this method is that there is no need to go in the water, where it is easy to miss camouflaged species like seahorses. It also avoids using other, more destructive methods, like using fish poison to find out what is around you.