Photo courtesy Scott Gietler, owner and editor of the Underwater Photography Guide

A Southern California man who photographs sea life is claiming to be the first to publish pictures of Pacific seahorses off the California coast.

The seahorses, nearly 12 inches in length, were shot during a scuba dive off San Diego last fall, said Scott Gietler, an amateur marine wildlife photographer and editor of the Underwater Photography Guide, where his photos can be seen.

Gietler, a Santa Monica resident, says he plans to try to find them next in Orange County’s Upper Newport Bay, where suitable habitat is plentiful; there are no recent known sightings of seahorses there.

Gietler says one seahorse was expelling babies from its belly. Among seahorses, males are the ones that carry offspring and give birth.

“We’re narrowing down where the seahorses are,” he said. “Most of the work is really researching, talking to scientists.”

One scientist he talked to was Milton Love, a biologist at UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute, who suggested he explore San Diego Bay for seahorses and other subtropical species.

Finding seahorses in Upper Newport Bay is a long shot, Love said, but not impossible.

“It doesn’t mean they aren’t there; it means it’s less likely,” Love said. “That’s the neat thing about working in the ocean. You never say never.”

Another scientist, marine science professor Dennis Kelly at Orange Coast College, said the seahorses have been spotted in Upper Newport Bay in years past, most recently in 1997.

They have happened during warm-water episodes, he said, but the sightings are rare and sporadic.

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