A wildlife photographer has captured the incredible moment a mother dugong and her calf came up for air during their migration off the Australian coast — a rare feat to witness up close due to the animal’s notoriously elusive nature.
Western Australian resident Jake Mason, of Shark Bay Eco Tours, said he’s been lucky enough to spot the “cows of the sea” in their natural a habitat a few times due to his line of work, but most people seldom get the chance to witness the special sight.
Mason took the photos as the pair were migrating from Monkey Mia to Dirk Hartog Island in Gascoyne region of Western Australia, to “follow the warm waters”.
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Mason said Shark Bay is home to about 10 per cent of the world’s dugong population, people just hardly see them.
“Basically, they do everything in their power to be not be found,” he told Yahoo. “There’s quite a few here, but they’re very elusive and they migrate throughout the year. So they go from the Monkey Mia side, all the way from the eastern part of the Gulf, all the way over to the western side.
“Sometimes we’ll go for weeks without seeing them. Some days, we’ll see like 40 in a day. At this time of year, they’re much harder to find.”
Dugongs loved by locals and visitors alike at Shark Bay
Mason said in his photos, the mum and her calf can be seen coming up for a breather, something the animals must do every three to seven minutes — roughly the same as a person.
“The only time you really see them together is when there’s a mum and calf, unless they’re migrating in a big group,” Mason explained. “It’s one of the top things a lot of our guests come and see — or want to see, at least, not all of them get to.”
Dugongs can “swim pretty quick” — just over 40 kilometres an hour — and they’ve got “really good hearing,” Jake said. “They hear boats, they just scalp it and disappear,” he said.
“The interactions are usually pretty slow, they’re hard to track. We got a really good look at one that day, that one wasn’t too phased by us, but usually we just get a bit of a glimpse in the distance. But on that day I got a really good look.”
Dugongs are primarily found in warm coastal waters in the Indo-West Pacific region. Their range spans over 40 countries, with large populations near northern Australia, the Red Sea, and the Arabian Gulf. They inhabit shallow, sheltered waters, often near seagrass beds, which are crucial to their diet.
Other areas with dugong populations include eastern Africa, the western Pacific Islands, and parts of Southeast Asia, though these populations are often smaller and more scattered due to habitat loss and other environmental pressures.
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