I wanted to photograph dugongs. On the east coast this is not so easy but in Shark Bay and the surrounding marine park there are an estimated 14,000 dugongs, making up about 10% of the total of the world's population. Dugongs, despite their appearance, are more closely related to elephants rather than other marine animals. Individuals can live to be over 70 years old. The typical adult dugong might be just short of 3 metres and about 450 kilograms; the biggest ever recorded was 4.06 metres long and weighed 1,016 kilograms.
The dugong’s name comes from Malay/Tagalog words meaning ‘lady of the sea’ but in other places it is commonly referred to as a sea cow, sea pig or sea camel. It is strictly herbivore and lives on seagrass. The areas where the seagrasses grow determine where the dugong can live. Though most now live in the waters of northern Australia between Shark Bay and Morton Bay. They also live along the east coast of Africa,in the Persian Gulf, between India and Ceylon and small populations near Taiwan and Okinawa. In the 1960s herds of 500 dugongs were observed off the African coast. However dugong number have been in decline and 20% of their numbers have disappeared in the last 90 years.
To photograph these creatures I took a cruise, well a few cruises on the Aristocat 2. The cruise went out every day, firstly visiting a Pearl Farm in the bay. This was fascinating as we were shown the process of the pearls being grown fro start to finish and how they now are implanting opals and gold in the pearl shells so that the finished product combines pearl and either gold or opal.
We also saw blue snapper being fed, dolphins, turtles and the odd shark. Although we did see dugongs they were pretty elusive preferring to avoid the boats. They would hold their breath for about 8 minutes before coming up for air. Usually this gave a quick opportunity for a photograph, but it was mostly just the dugong’s nose above the surface. Some passenger also took the opportunity to ride in the nets at the rear of the boat on the way back into the wharf. I was also able to get a few shots of the dugong from the shore when I went 4wd-ing.
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| The dugong diving |
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| Blue snapper |
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