A dugong struggling in waters hundreds of kilometres south of its Queensland home has escaped capture, with the RAAF’s Hercules aircraft on standby to airlift it to safety.
It was first seen in Merimbula in southern New South Wales on 18 November and its health had been closely monitored since.
Shona Lorigan, the vice-president of the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (Orrca), said the group was hoping the stray marine mammal would find its way back into open water and head north, but since then its health had been deteriorating and the situation was now more urgent.
Lorigan said one sign of a dugong’s health was how much blubber it had.
“We’ve been comparing photographs over time,” she said. “We’ve noticed a loss of body condition – we’re seeing its backbone now.”
The animal also had lesions on its skin, a sign it was not coping well in the colder water, Lorigan said.
The plan was to capture it in a net, put it in a tank and airlift it back to Queensland, where it would be monitored before being released.
A team of experts attempted to do so on Wednesday but failed, and the dugong swam under a causeway, further up Merimbula Lake.
