The recreational SCUBA diving in pursuit of pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti): impacts and management issues

• Main Authors: Chia-po Chang, 張嘉栢
• Other Authors: Che-yu Hsui
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46758387512537974441

碩士 === 南華大學 === 旅遊管理學系旅遊管理碩士班 === 100 === 　　Pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti), one of the most popular species for divers in southern Taiwan, was the major attraction promoted and marketed by Kenting national park because of its appearance, rarity, and hidden life style. However, after only a few years pygmy seahorses nearly disappeared, owing to intensive recreational diving in their habitat, or they were illegally stolen by SCUBA divers. This study aims to investigate the interaction among marine resources and recreational activities; the mistaken view concerning marine resources was discussed as well. The results indicated that the relationship between pygmy seahorses in Kenting and marine recreational activities were prone to conflict instead of mutual symbiosis. Three reasons were found, first, pygmy seahorses were overly promoted by the operation units in Kenting due to vague categorization. Pygmy seahorses were listed as data deficient (DD) in IUCN, but were excluded from protected species in Taiwan; however, the category of DD means it needs further information to determine the categorization. The way the operation unit promotes may cause more serious and unrecoverable damage in the ecosystem. Secondly, SCUBA diving is an open-access activity for all tourists. It has the property of externality and distorts the market mechanism; this phenomenon may further endanger the recreational resources, such as pygmy seahorse, due to intensive harassment or inappropriate behavior by tourists. Third, the lack of mechanism in the cycle of conservation results in that the revenues created by recreational diving are not contributed to the ecosystem. In addition, the research finds that the mainly impacts on viewing/photographing pygmy seahorse through scuba diving were extra auxiliary light source and intensive camera flash that disturbed target species, it was differed from other marine life tourism that the damage focus on habitat; Finally this study also proposed management regimes as reference guidelines for relative agencies in practice.