‘We rarely see them now’: just how vulnerable are Vanuatu’s dugongs?

A study of the sea cow population in the South Pacific islands is urgently needed, say experts, as numbers fall dramatically

On a bright spring day, the sun dances over the water of Havannah Bay on the island of Efate in Vanuatu. Below the surface, pockets of seagrass that can just about be seen from the shoreline, sway in the current. It's here, if they are lucky, that onlookers may spot a dugong bobbing in the shallow water, orbiting the seagrass meadows they feed on.

It's wonderful seeing them swimming by and grazing off the seagrass in front of the resort," says Greg Pechan, the owner of a local hotel, the Havannah, which sits at the tip of the bay. Pointing out beyond the jetty that stretches into the Pacific Ocean, he says Vanuatu's sea life is a big attraction for visitors to the Melanesian country.