A baby dugong sighting shows success of seagrass meadow conservation in Indonesia

A rare and encouraging wildlife sighting is making waves around a coastal community in Indonesia’s central Alor archipelago: a baby dugong swimming alongside its parents! Fishers spotted the calf in the bay of Mali Beach last October. Its presence is an indication of the success of more than a decade of community-led conservation efforts in these waters to protect and expand seagrass meadows.

Dugongs, a distant relative of manatees with a similar rounded body and snout but a forked tail, are listed as vulnerable, and their numbers in Indonesia are uncertain, estimated at just 1,000 individuals in 1994. But for 27 years, one dugong has been a common sight in the bay.

Dugongs have been documented to live over 70 years, so long-term conservation work is needed to keep Mawar, Melati, their baby, and future generations of these gentle “sea cows” happy and healthy. This includes implementing stricter codes of conduct for visitors in the protected area and encouraging any community and visitor activities to be respectful of the space that the dugong family needs to thrive. The growing tourism sector and coastal towns also must adopt practices to ensure that the bay’s water remains healthy, so that the seagrass meadows can continue to flourish.

The good news for Indonesia’s dugongs expands beyond Alor. WWF recently completed a biodiversity survey in the Southwest Maluku region of eastern Indonesia and unexpectedly spotted over 30 dugongs in the area. WWF plans to expand these surveys to additional regions, including Alor. “These surveys will strengthen the scientific basis for marine mammal habitat management in protected areas such as Alor by linking population data and behavior of dugongs and other marine mammals to the condition of seagrass meadows as their primary habitat," said Ranny R. Yuneni, the national coordinator of the Protected and Endangered Marine Species Program at WWF Indonesia.