"It is clear that dugongs are now critically endangered here, and certainly Tanzania's rarest large mammal," said Dr. Tim Davenport, WCS conservation biologist and a co-author of the recent report, which has found that these rare mammals have been eliminated from all but two locations in Tanzanian waters.
Formerly common along the coast of Tanzania, the dugong--a long-lived, slowly reproducing animal that grows up to 11 feet in length and almost 900 pounds--has been in dramatic decline since the 1970s. This decrease in population is the result of hunting and other threats such as accidental entanglement in fishing nets and the destruction of coastal habitats with seagrass, the dugong's primary food source. This decline has occurred in spite of the fact that the species has been nationally protected since 1970. On the international level, dugongs are considered vulnerable throughout their current range within tropical and subtropical coastal waters of the eastern Pacific and Indian Oceans, and are listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which bans all trade.
In this first nationwide assessment for dugongs in Tanzania, conservationists from WCS, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and The Mafia Island Turtle & Dugong Conservation Programme conducted interviews with 420 fishermen from 57 villages along the Tanzanian coast. Out of this group, only 32 sightings of dugongs were reported, and only 8 of these sightings involved living animals.
"Effectively managed sanctuaries
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Contact: Stephen Sautner
ssautner@wcs.org
718-220-3682
Wildlife Conservation Society
16-Jul-2003