Seahorse Farm (The) comes to Port Adelaide: Ron has a good look around at this new Adelaide Coast region attraction in South Australia

When the early navigators charted our coastline the artists on board were keen to record all they encountered. Ferdinand Bauer, on board Matthew Flinders' vessel The Investigator, was captivated by the seadragon - making visible what had only been imagined by a European audience. Today, his watercolour depiction of the Common Seadragon sits in The Natural History Museum in London.

But if you want to see the real thing head to the recently opened Seahorse Farm in Divett Street in historic Port Adelaide. Located next door to the Maritime Museum, it's the ten-year obsession of Tracy Warland who's moved it from her original facility in Port Lincoln.

"The opportunity arose to come to Port Adelaide so I decided to make the move to see if I couldn't enhance the business," said Tracy. "We're focussing on viewing and education, whereas the old facility focussed more on the captive breeding."

Tracy established the Seahorse Farm in Port Lincoln nearly ten years ago and originally sold many of her captive-bred seahorses for the aquarium market. It was her way of trying to stem the wholesale destruction of seahorse habitats.

"It's believed that around the world about twenty million seahorses are taken from the ocean every year," she said. Most are taken for the herbal medicine trade in Asia or the curio market. "In the Asian Market they grind them up sometimes into powders, make them into tablets because it's believed they're very good for internal organs. In some countries they are used as aphrodisiacs.

"When they die, the keep their shape so they make them into jewellery, stick them into candles or put them into a picture frame - things like that.'

A few years ago Tracy and her seahorses were swept along with the tourism tide as the Port Lincoln facility started it's public tours. Now with the Port Adelaide Seahorse Farm up and running even more South Australians can experience what's in their own backyard.

From Port Jackson shark called Bruce the to Mr Ray, the little Fiddler, they are all found in our waters and at the supervised touch pool the kids can see them up close.

The Seahorse Farm is at 20 Divett Street in Port Adelaide. It's open daily from 11 until five.

.If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au

The Seahorse Farm
20 Divett St
Port Adelaide
Open daily 11am until 5pm

Published 11th March 2007