Phuket: A dugong has been spotted for the first time off Rawai beach, causing excitement and fears about the prevailing threat to the rare aquatic animal posed by the current marine environment.
Officials from the Rawai municipal office and the Marine and Coastal Resources Research Center (Upper Andaman Sea) were mobilised to conduct a joint search of the area following the reported sighting of at least one dugong near the busy Rawai Landing Pier.
It was reported there may be up to nine dugongs in a group although this has yet to be confirmed. A video clip was taken of the mature dugong, around 1.5-1.8 metres long, from the pier.
Kongkiat Kittiwatthanawong, director of the research centre, said no dugong has ever been seen near Rawai beach before. He believed the dugong may have been attracted to the area by the underwater seagrass growing in small patches there.
Given the small supply of the seagrass, the dugong, which is thought to have migrated from nearby Trang in search of food, is not likely to linger around Rawai beach for very long, according to Mr Kongkiat.
Mr Kongkiat wrote in his Facebook post that the dugong may have abandoned Trang due to the shortage of seagrass in the sea there, where the population of native dugongs has been falling.
However, the dugongs face danger in unfamiliar seas. In recent months, many of them have been entangled in fishing nets and died or been injured by boat engine propellers.
One social media user said seagrass and a large variety of seaweeds used to grow in abundance in the shallow sea close to Rawai beach.
The seagrass, however, has almost been completely wiped out by the construction of piers along the beach and the unregulated harvesting of seaweed.
A screen capture of a video clip shows a dugong swimming off Rawai beach for the first time in Phuket on Tuesday. Phuket Info Centre Facebook Page
