Kategorie: News
Join the research. Help out. Protect dugongs
For many divers and snorkelers, encountering a dugong is one of the most special experiences in the Red Sea. Suddenly, this massive, light-gray body emerges above the seagrass meadow. The animal glides through the water almost weightlessly before plowing through the seabed again with its powerful snout. Anyone who has ever encountered a dugong underwater won’t forget that moment anytime soon.
Dugongs (Dugong dugon) can grow over three meters long, weigh more than 400 kilograms, and live up to 70 years; they don’t have their first calf until they are about ten years old. Despite their impressive size, they are peaceful herbivores whose primary food source is seagrass.
By grazing and churning up the sediment, they influence the growth and composition of these valuable habitats and are therefore also referred to as the “gardeners of the seagrass beds.” Seagrass beds, in turn, provide food and shelter for countless marine organisms and are among the most effective natural carbon sinks on Earth. Protecting dugongs is therefore always also a matter of marine and climate protection.
How many dugongs still live along the Egyptian coast?
Surprisingly, this question still cannot be answered reliably today. Scientists estimate there are between 20 and 70 animals along the Egyptian coast. Do they use the same bays and seagrass beds year after year? How far do they migrate along the coast? And which areas are particularly important for their survival? The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the dugong as Endangered worldwide; the East African coastal population - which includes the Egyptian dugongs - is even classified as Critically Endangered. However, reliable population data has been lacking until now.
This is exactly where the new DugongWatch project comes in, initiated by Prof. Dr. Ralph Schill and a team from the University of Stuttgart in collaboration with the nonprofit aquatil gGmbH (https://aquatil.org/). The citizen science initiative aims to bring together scientists, dive centers, dive guides, recreational divers, snorkelers, underwater photographers, and the local population. “No research vessel can get as close as you can. Scientists spend months trying to find a single dugong, while recreational divers encounter them every day,” the project team sums it up. What until now often ended up only in personal logbooks will, in the future, directly benefit scientific research. In a short video, Ralph Schill personally introduces the project and its goals.
Scars as Fingerprints
Photo-ID plays a central role in this effort. Dugongs have unique characteristics: scars and skin markings, as well as injuries and distinctive features on their tail and pectoral fins, help identify individual animals.
Propeller scars are often particularly revealing and also point to one of the greatest threats to the animals: collisions with boats.
A free, multilingual app planned for 2027 is intended to make reporting an encounter particularly easy in the future; in under two minutes, users can document the location, date, time, as well as photos and other observations. AI-powered image analysis will help compare large volumes of images and identify individual dugongs.
Until the app is available, sightings can already be reported via email to info@dugongwatch.org.
Maybe there’s an important dugong swimming on your hard drive
It’s not just new sightings that count. Older underwater photos, in particular, can be especially valuable to DugongWatch. Perhaps you photographed a dugong in the Red Sea five, ten, or even twenty years ago. If we can identify the same animal in photos taken in different years, such images can provide important clues about its habitats, migrations, and long-term use of specific seagrass beds.
Known sighting hotspots so far include Marsa Abu Dabbab, Marsa Mubarak, and Marsa Shagra near Marsa Alam, as well as Wadi El Gemal National Park; the list is expected to grow continuously as more reports come in. Even historical records go back a long way: The Stuttgart Museum of Natural History houses 19th-century dugong specimens that can be traced back to the coast of El Quseir.
DugongWatch Needs Your Support
However, photos and sighting reports alone are not enough. Building the multilingual app, developing the AI-powered photo ID system, scientifically analyzing the observations, and conducting on-site outreach and education all cost money. DugongWatch is funded exclusively through donations and therefore urgently needs your support. The project is run by the nonprofit aquatil gGmbH; donations are therefore tax-deductible.
By supporting the project, you are making a concrete contribution to turning individual encounters into reliable scientific data. The more we know about the animals, their locations, and their habitats, the more effectively we can develop conservation measures. Recreational divers can therefore help in two ways: by sharing their own dugong photos and by supporting the project with a donation - amounts starting at 5 euros are accepted.
Dive centers, liveaboards, and guides can also get involved as official partners and inform their guests about how to behave respectfully toward the animals.
After all, an old vacation photo might turn into an important scientific data point, and many small contributions might come together to form a project that makes a decisive contribution to the long-term protection of dugongs and their seagrass beds in the Red Sea.
Further information:
DugongWatch
Project sponsor
IUCN Red List – Dugong dugon
Report sightings by email to info@dugongwatch.org