Finding seahorses and naming them gets people excited about conservation, even if they get stuck in silt.

WADING THROUGH a seagrass meadow at low tide, at 6.50am, is anything but graceful for a newbie. Each step in the waterlogged mud forms an air-tight seal around our feet, threatening to swallow our boots and shoes.

Earlier, the Save Our Seahorses (SOS) Malaysia survey team, and a small group of public participants had boarded a small fishing boat, scooting for approximately 20 minutes from the fishing jetty at Pendas, to the Merambong seagrass bed, less than 500m off Johor’s Forest City.

This morning’s search for seahorses goes slow at first, although we see black sea slugs, shrimp, and the occasional crab or fish darting around the centimetres-deep water.  Then, our guide Wong Jieyi sights one male seahorse.