Dugong Extinct in China

After the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN had already declared the dugong, a species of sea cow, extinct in Mauritius and Taiwan, China is now following. A research study published yesterday in The Royal Society Publishing concludes that the dugong (Dugong dugon) is functionally extinct in China.

For the study, co-authored by Samuel Turvey of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the scientists surveyed 788 fishers who had regularly carried out fishing activities in nearshore marine habitats, the main habitat of dugongs. The researchers’ aim was to determine the regional status of the species—with the result that there had been only three dugong sightings from China’s coastal communities in the past five years.

The authors of the scientific study conclude that dugongs have suffered a rapid population collapse in recent decades and are now practically extinct in China. This means that some dugongs may well still live in Chinese waters, but that would be too few to maintain the species in this area. The scientists’ negative assessment is reinforced by the fact that two of the three dugong sightings come from the eastern province of Guangdong—an area far from the marine mammals’ known historical range and one that lacks the seagrass meadows important for maintaining the dugong population.

The causes of the dugongs’ disappearance lie mainly in overfishing and accidents with ships. Hunters in the 20th century also hunted the animals for their skin, bones and meat. After the number of herbivorous marine mammals began to decline rapidly from 1975 onward, the Chinese state classified dugongs as a national first-class protected animal in 1988. According to the researchers, the fact that the population did not recover despite this is due to the ongoing destruction of coastal ecosystems and the lack of seagrass meadows for feeding. Dugongs still exist in other parts of the world, but the threats they face there are the same.