Dugong

Dugongs eat a variety of healthy food. Dugongs are herbivores so that means they don’t eat any meat. Dugongs eat seagrass and can eat up to 40kg of it every day!

Dugongs are related to the manatee, they are similar in apperance and behavior but a dugongs tail is fluked like a whale A dugong looks like a large, grey brown bulbous animal with paddle like flippers, no dorsal fin and a distinctive head shape.

A dugong can live up to 50-70 years old. A young female dugong can get pregnant for the first time between 4-17 years old and she will stay pregnant for 13-15 months. Dugongs will have calves every 2-5 years.

Dugongs are endangered because of the seagrass habitat loss and the pollution we put in the ocean, they are also victims of bycatch (this means they get caught in fishing nets accidentally).

We can help them by not polluting and coming up with a way to stop bycatch.