Firm hopes to make a big splash with marine venture
Seahorse Ireland is the first company in the world to start cultivating seahorses on a commercial basis and is about to enter a market estimated to be worth more than $100 million annually.
Set up in 2001, Seahorse Ireland plans to commence trading in November this year selling seahorses for €200 each on the internet.
It's already been inundated with orders from around the world orders it couldn't hope to fill even at maximum production.
The company was founded by Kealan Doyle, a marine biologist and one of the world's leading authorities on seahorses.
He spent 10 years researching seahorse cultivation before deciding to set up a commercial venture.
A move from research into the business arena was a major career change for Kealan, but he saw huge commercial potential in the idea and decided that this was also a way to help conserve seahorses which are now overfished and are threatened with extinction.
"In excess of 44 million of them are being fished every year in the last ten years there has been a tenfold increase in the price and demand for seahorses and the wild population has declined by 75% in five years," says Kealan who believes that by supplying cultivated seahorses his company will reduce the demand for wild seahorses.
Traditional Chinese medicine which uses seahorses as an aphrodisiac and in cures for a variety of ailments is the largest market worth $40 million to $50 million a year.
The aquarium market is worth another $40m and seahorses are also in demand for the curio trade which turns them into souvenirs and jewellery.
Initially Kealan found it difficult to get people to take his seahorse proposal seriously.
He rang Udarás na Gaeltachta from India to talk to about the project and they thought he was joking.
But Kealan returned to Ireland, gave an eight-hour presentation and persuaded them that this was a business idea with huge potential.
The project has since received funding from Udarás na Gaeltachta; BIM; Taighde Mara Teo and the Irish Marine Institute.
Seahorse Ireland was registered in 2001 and moved into a UCG facility at Carna in July 2002.
In setting up the business Kealan was joined by Ken Maher another leading authority on seahorses, who is now the company production manager.
Prior to the setting up of Seahorse Ireland, most efforts to breed seahorses on a commercial scale failed due to poor survival rates, but the company has achieved very high success rates by harvesting and cultivating a unique feed source available off the west coast of Ireland.
In October 2002 the company made its first and only sale to date for 18,000 worth of seahorses.
"This was a demonstration that the business was commercially feasible."
Seahorse Ireland expects to produce and sell 30,000 seahorses in 2004 and to increase the number to 75,000 the following year.
The company employs five people.
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