No, they are not pretty in the classic sense. And yet, with a bit of effort, it’s possible to understand how humans have looked at manatees since time immemorial, and later, around the campfire, made merpeople out of them: for example, they sometimes appear to “stand” in the water, giving them a vaguely human appearance. They have five finger-like bones on their front fins and they can turn their heads. Their fins – sometimes round like those of the Matais in the Caribbean, sometimes split like those of the dugongs in the Pacific – are reminiscent of those of mythical creatures. When Christopher Columbus arrived in Haiti in 1493 on his first voyage to America, he was convinced he had seen mermaids on the bow of his ship. But they are “not as beautiful as they are said to be,” says his logbook. Their faces resembled those of men.
For all the stories that have inspired manatees, the news researchers have now published in the journal Royal Society Open Science is particularly sad: Dugong manatees have been declared extinct in China. According to a study, only three fishermen surveyed in the past five years said they had seen one of the animals, which are also called sea cows or sea pigs (Dugong dugon). According to this, there have not been any verified field observations in the region for 23 years.
Dugongs feed primarily on seaweed. You need a lot of it because the plants are low in calories.
(Photo: Patrick Louisy/dpa)
Historical records of dugongs peaked around 1960 and then declined rapidly from 1975 onwards. “Based on these results, we must conclude that dugongs have experienced rapid population collapse in recent decades and are now functionally extinct in China,” the scientists said. The rapid decline in the dugong population is a “sobering reminder” that extinction of a species could occur before effective conservation measures can be taken, the researchers said.
Food shortages and fishing nets threaten the sluggish animals
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Dugong as Critically Endangered. It is not known how many animals there are in the entire range. Dugongs are found on the coasts of many tropical and subtropical countries from East Africa to the South Pacific. The world’s largest population is native to northern Australia.
Historically, the slow animals were easy prey for hunters. Today, they are mainly threatened by construction and industry on the coasts, the decline of seagrass pastures, and fish and shark nets in which the animals become entangled.
In the Indo-Pacific region, the fork-tailed manatee has populated many legends for centuries. The name dugong, which is also used to describe the animals, goes back to a Malaysian word that means “lady of the sea”. According to the legends of the native people of the Pacific island nation of Palau, the dugong was once a human. There is a tradition there of stories of young women being turned into manatees. Wood carvings show fishermen receiving help from the animals after accidents at sea. In the area around Okinawa, Japan, where the northernmost dugong population lives, the animals were seen as messengers of the sea gods. A story is about that it was the manatees that taught humans how to make love. Dugongs take their time to mate. Males and females hug each other, every few years a young is born, which then follows the mother on her way for up to two years.
Perhaps the legends surrounding manatees will inspire not only more stories, but also measures to protect them in the future.