Cruelty or conservation? Fish ‘silently suffering stress’ in Britain’s aquariums

According to a new study, the vast majority of fish in aquariums are not actually threatened in the wild, reports Jane Dalton, raising questions about the role and future of such attractions

A string of ‘zoochosis’ instances have recently been reported, including a lionfish that was seen floating abnormally (Getty/iStock)

Seahorses, the ethereal, graceful creatures that children love to draw, are an important link in food chains, consuming tiny fish and plankton, and being consumed by larger ones. Thanks to human intervention – mostly catching them faster than they can reproduce – yep, you guessed it, their numbers are thought to be in decline. In the UK, most of us never see one.

But Stevie (not their real name) first encountered them in Britain while working at an aquarium – and was in for a shock.

“A colleague asked me to clean out the big-belly seahorse tank, an approximately 1.5-square-metre, hollow cylinder that had a viewing point for children in the centre,” Stevie recalls.