722 R.M.Y. Ng et al.
with fishers from Peninsular Malaysia.Welocated the fisher respondents using snowball and haphazard sampling (Gubrium & Holstein, 2001), whereby we obtained fisher contacts from initial respondents, local fisher associations and fishmongers. The questionnaire-based survey (henceforth referred to
as the public survey) and the overlapping subset of the fisher survey consisted of three main sections with 26 questions (Supplementary Material 1). We determined respondent knowledge and perceptions of seahorse uses including underlying motivations to consume seahorses (medicinal and non-medicinal uses) across ethnic cultures. We also recorded the respondents’ perceptions of the level of threats to seahorses. We identified the socio-demographic charac- teristics such as gender, age, ethnicity, location of resi- dence (state), location setting (urban vs rural/semi-rural) and education level of the respondents. We adapted the questionnaire from other studies related to the use of seahorses (Salleh et al., 2020) and with the guidance of field experts (authors AY-HT and ACOL). We derived the options for the questionnaire sections exploring underlying motivations and aspects relating to health conditions from Salleh et al. (2020). Each questionnaire took c. 10–15 min to complete. Before conducting the surveys, we tested and refined the questionnaire using test groups. The University of Malaya Research Ethics Committee (UMREC) approved the ques- tionnaire and issued an ethical permit (
UM.TNC2/ UMREC – 1225). In accordance with the approved ethics protocol, the interviewer disclosed the project objectives to each respondent, requested their informed consent, in- formed them that participation was voluntary and anony- mous and gave assurances that the interviewee could terminate the survey at any time. We restricted the survey to members of the public and
fishers of Malaysian nationality who were at least 18 years old and residing in Malaysia. Estimation of the sample size of respondents would ideally be based on data regarding the proportions of the various ethnic groups consuming sea- horses, but these were not available. Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics sample size calculator and relevant adult population statistics (see Supplementary Table 1 for details), we obtained expected minimum sample sizes of 269 Malays, 86 Chinese, 26 Indians and four individuals from other ethnic groups.
Data analysis
We summarized the diversity and type of seahorse use (me- dicinal uses; other uses; both) and underlying motivations by ethnic group (Malay; Chinese; Indian; Indigenous; others) and background (general public; fishers). Ethnicity and culture are used synonymously in this article as ethnic identity is an important determinant of cultural values
(Loue, 2013;Mohd Yusuf et al., 2016). Wecategorized medi- cinal uses into five types: external treatments (of symptoms or diseases), internal treatments (of symptoms or diseases), support of general well-being, uses based on aphrodisiac properties, and uncertain health benefits. We categorized other (non-medicinal) uses into five types: curios/souvenirs, pets in aquariums, protection against evil spirits, to put a spell on someone, and for research and educational pur- poses (display material). Given the potential bias in using online surveys for data
collection (under-representation of certain groups, such as older age groups or those from rural areas), we weighted the samples to reduce such bias. We applied the raking method for weighting (Pew Research Center, 2018), and conducted univariate statistical analyses (see below) on both weighted and unweighted samples. As the conclusions drawn were similar for both weighted and unweighted sam- ples (Supplementary Table 1), we present the results of the analyses based on the unweighted samples. We analysed the patterns of seahorse uses using χ2 tests
and Fisher’s exact tests. For ethnic-based analyses of med- icinal and other uses, we pooled respondents from three groups (Indian, Indigenous, others) because of their small sample sizes. Weexcluded the 10 respondents who had con- sumed seahorses but were unsure of the health benefits from the analysis. We compared perceptions of the valuableness of seahorses and of the level of threats facing them between the general public and fisher respondents. Weconducted all statistical analyses using R 4.3.0 (R Core Team, 2023). For all comparisons, we considered P,0.05 to be significant. Weused the classification tree method (a machine learn-
ing approach) to explore the key explanatory variables underlying the pattern of seahorse use. We included six socio-demographic (categorical) variables in the model- building process: gender (male; female; both/prefer not to say), age (18–30; 31–40; 41–50; 51–60; .60 years old), eth- nicity (Malay; Chinese; Indian; Indigenous; others), edu- cation (none; primary; secondary; tertiary; postgraduate), region of residence (west, east or south coasts of Peninsular Malaysia; Borneo) and occupational background (fisher; general public). We constructed the classification tree using the party package in R (Hothorn et al., 2006).
Results
We obtained 1,189 responses from 637 members of the pub- lic and 552 fishers from across all four regions in Malaysia (Figs 1 & 2). The ethnic groups represented were Malays, Chinese, Indians and Indigenous, and other minority ethnic groups collectively categorized as ‘others’. The majority of public respondents were women (64.8%), whereas almost all fisher respondents were men (99.8%). Most of the public respondents were 18–30 years old (54.3%) and more than one-third were of Chinese ethnicity (38.5%). For the fisher
Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 720–729 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000425
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