In 2019, two baby dugongs were found alive after they washed ashore in Krabi and Trang provinces, in Thailand, but sadly died not long after they were rescued. The event even caught the attention of Hollywood star, Leonardo DiCaprio who posted about it on social media, drawing much needed attention to the plight of Thailand’s endangered dugongs.
The two baby dugongs were taken into care and named, Marium and Yamil by Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya. In the local Yawi language of Southern Thailand, the names given to the two dugongs mean lady of the sea’ and handsome man of the sea’, respectively.
Unfortunately, 8-month-old Marium succumbed to an infection that was exacerbated by ingesting marine plastic waste. According to Chaiyapruk Werawong, head of the Trang province marine park, Marium died from a blood infection and pus in her stomach,” adding that small amounts of plastic waste was found in her intestinal tract.
The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said the three-month-old Yamil died from a blood infection at the Phuket Marine Biological Centre. Thailand’s Natural Resources and Environment Minister, Varawut Silpa-arcpha offered a public apology for failing to save Yamil’s life.
“We are so sorry, we still don’t understand dugongs well enough,” he said in a statement.
Prior to the two dugong deaths, seven of these docile mammals were also found dead on Thai beaches in the same year.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species has listed dugongs as vulnerable to extinction on a global scale. Commonly known as “sea cows,” dugongs graze peacefully on seagrass in shallow coastal waters. It has a large range in Southeast Asia’s coastal waters.
Human activities such as the destruction and modification of habitat, coastal development, pollution, fishing activities, vessel strikes, unsustainable hunting or poaching and tourism, have threatened the mammals’ ecosystem.
Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s (UMS) Borneo Marine Research Institute (BMRI) director, Professor Dr Rossita Shapawi said that the accelerating loss of seagrass beds is the most important factor behind the dwindling dugong populations in Sabah and Malaysia in general.
Dugongs feed exclusively on seagrass, especially young shoots and roots. Excessive sedimentation due to uncontrolled anthropogenic activities mainly due to coastal development will smother the seagrass bed, she said. This is the main cause of the dugong’s disappearing habitat and food source. Dugongs are the world’s only vegetarian marine mammal and can consume up to 40 kilograms (kg) of seagrass a day.
Seagrass, dubbed Flowers of the Ocean’, are unique flowering plants that have evolved to live in marine habitats. Although seagrasses account for less than 0.2 percent of all plant life the world’s oceans, they’re responsible for 10 percent of the carbon stored in oceans annually, and they are up to 35 times far more efficient at sequestering carbon than the rainforest. Southeast Asia has the highest diversity of seagrass species.
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