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• DUGONG - SEE PICTURES BELOW

• STREWN with mud-caked bodies, the tidal flats looked like a battlefield. Five days previously, tropical cyclone Kathy had torn through the western Gulf of Carpentaria region, leaving a trail of devastation. The storm surge accompanying the 1984 cyclone had been awesome. Here, some 35 kilometres north-east of Borroloola, it had dumped hundreds of sea creatures on the mudflats near the mouth of the McArthur River and for five long days turtles, sharks, rays, fish and dugongs had gradually succumbed to the tropical sun. The helicopter that had flown me from Borroloola put down gingerly on the flats 50 metres from three young dugongs I'd spotted from the air. They thrashed about at the clatter and roar of the engine, frantically pounding their tails and spinning on their long axes - the same panic reaction that can cause them to tangle in fishing nets and drown.

• Bill Freeland, of the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory, and I stepped out and struggled through the thick grey mud towards the dugongs. Each had carved out a small wallow and lay there eyeing us, quiet now, as we approached. They were among 27 we found scattered over some 275 square kilometres and up to 9 km inland - some behind stands of 3 m tall mangroves - during a two-day search. There was still a lot of water around. Like the three youngsters, most lay in wallows up to 3 m wide and 30 centimetres deep. Although created inadvertently by panic-stricken thrashing, these wallows probably saved their occupants from death by dehydration. We had intended to make this a reconnaissance mission: I was there to recover information from dead dugongs, the marine mammals I had been researching for 10 years at Townsville's James Cook University. However, to our amazement only two of them were dead. So our mission quickly became one of rescue. With great difficulty, we muscled each dugong onto a cargo net; I received a spectacular black eye from the tail fluke of one large female. Although the net was fine for the young dugongs, it was barely adequate for adults measuring up to 2.9 m long and weighing close to 400 kilograms. Once cocooned in the net, each was airlifted to the nearest waterway and released. Two died in transit, probably from shock, but most swam off strongly to rejoin their fellows in the gulf. These tropical waters are home to one of the world's largest dugong populations. Aborigines of the northern coastal communities and Torres Strait Islanders have had a long and intimate association with them, as have many other indigenous people of the Indian and western Pacific oceans. But despite its large numbers, the dugong remains a mystery to most Australians. To confuse things further, this shy creature has for thousands of years been linked with the mermaid myth. Warm-blooded, fleshy and equipped with the archetypal mermaid tail, the dugong seen from a distance is said to have set many a love-starved sailor's heart pounding.

• Encrusted in mud, this dugong was among 27 found stranded on mudflats at the mouth of the NT's McArthur River about a week after cyclone Kathy in 1984. All but two were alive, and were probably saved from fatal dehydration by their cocoons of mud or the wallows they inadvertently dug as they thrashed around in panic. Residents of nearby Borroloola stopped their own clean-up to help rescue them. Bill Freeland of the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory and author Helene Marsh measure and sex a dugong in a wallow. Shortly afterwards it was airlifted (below) to the nearest tidal creek in a helicopter cargo net.

• In recent years scientists have learnt much about the biology of the gentle dugong, and with this knowledge has come a concern for its welfare. Native to the seas of 42 countries, from east Africa across to Vanuatu in the Pacific, it is, despite its extensive range, rare throughout much of it these days, and in some areas even endangered. As a lecturer at James Cook University, a dugong researcher for 15 years and an adviser to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, I find the welfare of the dugong is an issue that's never far near the top of his head, enabling him to breathe while most of his body was under water. His pig-like head had a large horseshoe-shaped upper lip covered with stout bristles. Inside his mouth were horny pads like the one a cow uses for grasping grass. The skin on his back was nearly 3.5 cm thick. This included fat, which was thinner than that of most marine mammals I'd examined.  Except for the bristles on his muzzle, the hair on his body was short and sparse. As I ran my hand over his back, conflicting images filled my head. How, I wondered, could anyone mistake such a creature for a mermaid, even at a distance? "Sea cow", its common name, describes it well; "Sirenia", the group's scientific name, derived from the Latin for siren, definitely does not! At that time, the university's research project involved studying dugongs killed locally in shark nets, which claimed 249 between 1964 and 1983. Our knowledge of the species' biology was so scant that any information we could collect would be important. Most accidental drownings – and sightings - of dugongs occur in water less than 5 m deep in bays, shallows and reef areas protected from strong wind and heavy seas and with extensive beds of seagrass.

• Mermaids have fascinated people from ancient times to the present day. The one above featured in a 1989 Walt Disney production, THE LITTLE MERMAID, based on a Han Christian Andersen tale. Mermaids were said to attract sailors with their beauty and singing but were a bad omen. Mermaid legends may have arisen when mariners glimpsed sea cows, with their rounded bodies and swollen mammary glands. The manatee's tail (below) is similar to a beaver's while the distinctive fluked tail (inset) of the dugong is consistent with its more streamlined shape. as deep as 37 m, and sometimes in creeks and rivers. Although generally considered rather slow swimmers, dugongs can reach 20 km/h over short distances. They can also cover long distances: one of my study animals travelled 200 km in two days. They usually spend only seconds breathing at the surface between dives that average around 1-2 minutes. The longest dive recorded was over eight minutes; the deepest more than 20 m. TO some people, dugongs (the word is of Malay origin and gives the species its scientific name Dugong dugon] sue sacred, to others a source of meat, oil, fine leather and even ivory. Dugongs were sighted, but misidentified, by some of our earliest explorers. In 1688, William Dampier reported "manatees" in a bay on the north coast of WA, and, in 1789, while exploring Moreton Bay, Matthew Flinders saw several large "fish or animals that came to the surface to breathe in the manner of a porpoise or rather seal, for they did not spout, nor had they any dorsal fin". Dugongs may look rather like rotund dolphins, or even seals, but the resemblance is deceptive. They (and their manatee cousins) are in fact more closely related to elephants. Like elephants, they are plant-eaters, feeding almost exclusively on seagrasses, which are broken down by bacteria in their large intestine. In an adult dugong this is as thick as a fire hose and about 30 m long.

• Biological research is a bit like detective work. By studying a trail of clues, we can reconstruct the subject's life history. For example, tusks can reveal age, and scars on the uterus can show how many calves a female has had. Dugongs may live for 70 years or more. The female doesn't have her first calf until she is at least 10 years old; then she bears a single calf every 3-5 years after a gestation period of about 13 months. The newbornrn calf is just over a metre long and weighs around 30 kg. Although it starts eating seagrass soon after birth, it continues to nurse from human-like nipples near the base of its mother's flippers until up to 18 months old.  A tale of two skulls... The enormous size of Stellei's sea cow can be gauged when its skull is seen beside one from an adult dugong. American palaeontologist Daryl Damning, a specialist in sirenian fossils, inspects the skulls at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, one of the world's few museums that possess skulls of this extinct giant. Stellei's sea cow lived on kelp and was so adapted to feeding in shallow water that it was unable to dive, making it easy prey for hunters. Australia lack marine sediments from the appropriate geological age and no sirenian fossils have been found here.

• By collating the layers in this dugong tusk (below), Helene Marsh finds that the adult female from which it came was 22 years old. The layers are deposited like a tree's growth rings, one dark layer and one light layer representing one year. The tusk was cut in half with a rock saw and etched with acid to highlight the layering. Tusk ends are fashioned into cigarette holders on Indonesia's Aru Islands.  An orphaned female a few months old that was brought to an oceanarium in, Cairns for hand-rearing shortly after being accidentally netted. Like all dugong calves, she was very affectionate and really seemed to enjoy being cuddled while being bottle-fed. She always tended to be more enthusiastic about this than the person doing the cuddling, perhaps because dugong skin feels a lot like sandpaper! Sadly, Dolly died four months later of an infection contracted from sewage-contaminated seagrass. Dugongs do not fare well in cap-tivity. Of 30 kept in 13 institutions worldwide since 1959, nine died within a month and only 11 lived longer than six months. The longest surviving were a pair kept in southern India for 11 years. They were hand-fed a total of 40 kg of seagrass a day, which was clearly not enough, as they failed to grow normally. During their captivity, several accounts were published of their mating behaviour, but when they died, both were found to be male! I know of only four in captivity at present: two in Japan's Toba Aquarium, and two in Indonesia's Jaya Ancol Aquarium. Putting their life history through a computer, it's not hard to see why dugongs are vulnerable to extinction. Even if every female had a calf every three years from the age of 10, the Mermaids have fascinated people from ancient times to the present day. The one above featured in a 1989 Walt Disney production, THE LITTLE MERMAID, based on a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Mermaids were said to attract sailors with their beauty and singing but were a bad omen. Mermaid legends may have arisen when mariners glimpsed sea cows, with their rounded bodies and swollen mammary glands. The manatee's tail (below) is similar to a beaver's while the distinctive fluked tail (inset) of the dugong is consistent with its more streamlined shape. as deep as 37m, and sometimes in creeks and rivers.

• Although generally considered rather slow swimmers, dugongs can reach 20 km/h over short distances. They can also cover long distances: one of my study animals travelled 200 km in two days. They usually spend only seconds breathing at the surface between dives that average around 1-2 minutes. The longest dive recorded was over eight minutes; the deepest more than 20 m. TO some people, dugongs (the word is of Malay origin and gives the species its scientific name Dugong dugon) are sacred, to others a source of meat, oil, fine leather and even ivory. Dugongs were sighted, but misidentified, by some of our earliest explorers. In 1688, William Dampier reported "manatees" in a bay on the north coast of Western Australia, and, in 1789, while exploring Moreton Bay, Matthew Flinders saw several large "fish animals that came to the surface to breathe in the manner of a porpoise or rather seal, for they did not spout, nor had they any dorsal fin". Dugongs may look rather like rotund dolphins, or even seals, but the resemblance is deceptive. They (and their manatee cousins) are in fact more closely related to elephants. Like elephants, they are plant-eaters, feeding almost exclusively on sea-grasses, which are broken down by bacteria in their large intestine. In an adult dugong this is as thick as a fire hose and about 30 m long. Biological research is a bit like detective work. By studying a trail of clues, we can reconstruct the subject's life history. For example, tusks can reveal age, and scars on the uterus can show how many calves a female has had. Dugongs may live for 70 years or more. The female doesn't have her first calf until she is at least 10 years old; then she bears a single calf every 3-5 years after a gestation period of about 13 months. The newborn calf is just over a metre long and weighs around 30 kg. Although it starts eating seagrass soon after birth, it 'continues to nurse from human-like nipples near the base of its mother's flippers until up to 18 months old.

• The population would be unlikely to increase at more than about 5 per cent a year. Thus, if an area has 200 dugongs, no more than five females a year can be killed by humans if that population is to remain stable. MOST Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders are legally allowed to hunt dugongs in Australian waters. To them the dugong is often more than just an important food source; it is central to their culture, economy and even religion. Hunting it is an expression of their Aboriginality - tangible evidence of their skill, knowledge and oneness with the elements of their environment. As part of my work I have been on many dugong hunts with the people of Cape 'York and Torres Strait, a rare privilege in cultures where hunting tends to be a male-only activity. Traditionally, dugong hunters use spears with detachable barbed heads. Before European contact, they either perched on temporary platforms over seagrass or scouted the reef waters in canoes. When a dugong came up to breathe, the harpooner hurled himself at it. If he made a successful strike, there would often be a furious ride until the dugong tired itself out. Then the hunter would hold it under until it drowned. Today the aluminium dinghy and outboard motor have all but replaced the bark canoe and the paddle.

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