To the ancient inhabitants of the Arabian Gulf they provided a
life-sustaining source of red meat, Biblical legend suggests that
the Ark of the Covenant was protected by their skin; to Arabian
fishermen right up to recent times they were a welcome bonus that
could feed several families for weeks and whose skins fulfilled
a variety of uses including making sandals strong enough to withstand
razor-sharp coral rocks; to early western navigators their mammalian
features fuelled legendary tales of creatures that were half human
and half fish, whose female members bewitched love-lorn sailors;
to early scientists they seemed to be an enigma: sluggish marine
mammals that ate grass growing on the shallow sea-bed. Thus they
became known as sea-cows, recognised as the beast that gave rise
to the legendary mermaid and given the name Dugong dugon by the
German taxonomist Muller in 1776. The first full description was
by Rüppel who dissected a female dugong obtained in the Red Sea
in the nineteenth century.
Habitation sites at Umm an Nar island, forming part of today’s
burgeoning metropolis of Abu Dhabi, confirm that over four thousand
years ago the inhabitants of the Gulf coastline hunted sea-cows
with a considerable degree of success. At an archaeological site
excavated on the island, dugong bones are more frequent than those
of dromedary, ox, oryx, gazelle, or goat.
Just how numerous these reclusive creatures once were is a matter
for conjecture. We can however turn to a few ancient texts for
actual descriptions of where dugongs once lived in Arabian waters.
A text written in the second century BC by Agatharchides of Cnidos
(translated by Stanley Burnstein), describing a section of Red
Sea coastline, reads as follows: “……the sea is so shallow
that it measures not more than two fathoms. Everywhere it is green,
not because of the nature of the waters but because of the seaweed
and other vegetation that is visible through the water. For this
reason innumerable sea dogs are found there….” When Burnstein
made this translation from the more than 2000 year old text, he
identified the region being described as the vast shallow sea-grass
bed region south of the picturesque port of Suakin on the western
coastline of the Red Sea. To this day this region harbours small
families of dugongs (it was here that I experienced my first Red
Sea underwater encounter with one) and there seems little doubt
that the Greeks were quite familiar with the animal.
Such literary excursions into Arabia’s past can uncover some real
gems of information. Another marine mammal that once inhabited
these seas was hunted to extinction before enlightened modern
day conservationists even had the opportunity to set eyes on it.
Like the dugong it was once so abundant that herds of several
thousand individuals were observed. This Red Sea seal, for that
is what it was, is unknown from fossil records and has left no
physical trace. The most recent record is by J.R. Wellsted, writing
in Travels in Arabia in 1838, who stated that he had seen the
skin of a young seal captured near Ras Banas and that local people
told him that seals were still common in the region. Once again,
we can turn back more than two thousand years, to the descriptive
writings of Agatharchides who lived at a time when seals were
a common sight in the Red Sea: ” The people who live near the
never thirsty Fisheaters, as though an unbreachable treaty had
been concluded between them and the seals, do not harass the seals,
nor are they harmed by them. Without plotting against one another,
each group strictly respects the other’s prey, and, thus, they
live in close association with one another in a way that would
be difficult to parallel among men who live with other men”. Would
that such harmony between Man and wildlife existed today! Incidentally
seals were so numerous in the northern Red Sea at this time that
what we know today as Tiran island was known to the ancient Greeks
as ‘Seal Island’!
For some time it has looked as if the dugong was heading on the
same road to regional extinction as the long lost Red Sea seal.
There is little doubt that their numbers have been in decline
for several hundred years and probably much longer. As recently
as ten years ago it was widely thought that dugongs were all but
extinct in Arabian waters with the few surviving individuals likely
to disappear within a few years. Scientists looked back with anguish
at how the animal had until recently been quite numerous. The
dugong seemed to be a timid and shy marine mammal that was surviving
“by the skin of its tusks”. Few westerners had ever seen them
alive and when dead specimens were washed up they still caused
great excitement in the media, with claims that the legendary
mermaid had been found: “Half Man, Half Fish!”, read the headlines.
One western observer who experienced much more than a fleeting
glimpse of these fascinating animals was William Travis who described
his fascinating encounter in his book: Voice of the Turtle. To
the sceptical scientists who had only seen their bones in museums
Travis’ description seemed to verge on the fanciful for, according
to him, not only had he seen them but he had played with them
in the shallows. Travis was working as a fisheries officer off
the Somalian coastline and encountered a large herd of dugongs
close to where fishermen had set nets. In an effort to avoid a
wholesale slaughter with them drowning in the nets, Travis set
out to physically lead the sea-cows away from the fishing area.
” So I decided to ‘herd’ these great browsers, to turn them south
to our area, and for the next ten days two boats were deployed
on this task. During this time I learnt much concerning their
lives, most of which was at complete variance with what I had
read. Many authorities regard the Dugong as an inhabitant of swamp
and estuary, shunning the open sea and existing only in backwaters
and in small family groups. Yet here, off the open coast, with
the swamp 300 miles to the south, I found huge herds, sometimes
as many as 500 strong, swimming freely within and without the
reef. They were neither elusive nor shy; being great dumb sea-oxen
that only responded when you whacked their backs with a paddle,
blew conch shell-horns, or clapped the water with oar blades.
During the afternoon the young calves of up to 4 feet long would
leave the herd and form a nursery close to the sandy beaches.
Here they would play like slow, clumsy puppies. Wading amongst
them, they would dive between my legs, brush against my side and
generally use me as a pivot point and scratching post.”
Such descriptions of huge numbers of approachable sea-cows seemed
to many scientists to be out of keeping with what little was known
about the animal and as Travis rightly pointed out, his observations
of their behaviour differed markedly from the accepted view. Whilst
marine biologists were correct in reporting their shyness when
in small groups, it was also clear that they sometimes aggregated
into much larger herds and they seemed to show much less fear
of boats or humans when they were in these herds.
For years, fishermen in the southern Gulf have harvested dugongs
which became accidentally caught in their fishing nets. It was
more a case of making good use of an unexpected catch than actually
hunting them. Wilfred Thesiger, writing in his epic book Arabian
Sands, observed one such capture. ” …Once they brought in a
young dugong or sea-cow they had caught in their nets. It was
about four feet long, a pathetically helpless-looking creature,
hideously ugly. They said its meat was good eating, and that its
skin made sandals.” Every year fishermen, beach-walkers and marine
biologists would encounter a few carcasses washed up along the
shoreline and when major oil-spills occurred, as for example the
one known as the Nowruz spill during the Iran-Iraq war, biologists
were on the look out for any sudden increase in the occurrence
of dead dugongs that had been killed by the oil.
It was one such survey, conducted by Saudi Arabian and expatriate
biologists, with cooperation of neighbouring Arabian countries,
that caused one of the biggest stirs ever among marine-mammal
conservationists. At the height of the survey into potential damage
related to oil-spills in the Gulf, at a time when biologists were
more familiar with dead dugongs than live ones (at least 37 had
been killed by the 1983 Nowruz spill), the team carrying out the
survey came across two densely packed adjacent herd of 577 and
97 sea-cows respectively within an area of less that 1 sq.km,
and upped the total population estimate of the Gulf from ‘a few
hundred’ to 7,310 ± 1,300.
One of the interesting things about this sighting of dugongs in
the sea between Bahrain and Qatar was that, despite the very large
numbers present in the aggregations, which incidentally represented
the largest dugong herds ever recorded, there were hardly any
other sightings of dugongs within this region. It seemed that
it was an open-invitation party at which every dugong worth his
salt attended.
Since this dramatic sighting, and the completion of the comprehensive
survey of the Status and Conservation of Dugongs in the Arabian
Region (published by MEPA and Ministry of Defence & Aviation,
Saudi Arabia in 1989), biologists and regional authorities have
become more aware of the Gulf’s important population of dugongs.
During the massive oil-spill that was triggered by Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait there were once more heightened fears that the oil would
reach an area where the dugongs aggregate and possibly kill a
large number of these defenceless marine mammals. Fortunately
this did not happen.
Although we now know that the dugongs are out there in quite significant
numbers, they remain an elusive quarry for film-makers, divers
and nature-watchers. Two people who have done their best to build
up a picture of their seasonal behaviour in Bahraini waters are
Dr Mike and Cathy Hill. Their own story of just how frustrating
this has been is told in the second half of this special feature.
Text and pictures by Mike and Kathy Hill
It was the 12th of February 1992. We were bobbing around in a
small motor-boat in the Arabian Gulf. Kathy was on the telephone
to London, England!
Throughout the previous year we had been taking weekly helicopter
flights (courtesy of Bahrain’s Public Security Air Wing) over
Bahrain’s coastal waters in search of dugongs. The objective was
to record the sea-cows on film, from both above and below water,
for a film on Bahrain’s natural history that was being made with
our cooperation by Oxford Scientific Films. Despite lengthy searches
our tally to date was just two dugongs that we had seen off the
south coast of Bahrain.
We had received numerous reports from both fishermen and pleasure
boaters of sightings of these unusual animals but suspected that
many of these referred to hump-back dolphins which are quite common
in these waters. A dead adult dugong, washed up south of Askar
village, did however help to sustain our severely tested faith
in the existence of the elusive herds that had been previously
reported.
It was a pure hunch that led us to charter the small boat that
had brought us from Bahrain Yacht Club to this area south of Fasht
al Adhm, between the main island coastline and the small island
of Um Jalid.
It is quite frankly hard to understand how dugongs were ever mistaken
for mermaids. Their bodies are cigar-shaped, covered in smooth
grey skin. The dorso-ventrally flattened rear end terminates in
a tail fluke not too dissimilar to that of a dolphin. This is
in striking contrast to their relatives, the manatees, which have
spatulate tails. There are no signs of the mammalian hind limbs
and the front limbs comprise a pair of paddle-like flippers. When
dugongs break surface they breathe in fresh air through their
valve-like nostrils situated at the tip of their short, broad,
trunk-like snout. The flattened bristly muzzle is turned downwards
in keeping with its bottom-feeding behaviour.
Although the dugong is widely distributed throughout the coastal
waters of the western Pacific and tropical Indian ocean, its population
is extremely patchy within this range. One explanation for this
may be the impact of man through hunting, habitat destruction
or other disturbances. Within the Gulf region dugong are still
found in Saudi Arabian, Bahraini, Qatari and UAE waters. Since
the survey conducted in 1986 (see previous article) no further
population studies have been undertaken, despite the fact that
this reclusive marine mammal is vulnerable or endangered throughout
its range and the Arabian population represents a vital part of
the world-population.
Our boat had brought us through a slightly choppy sea on what
had turned out to be a fine sunny day. Our elation, and Kathy’s
telephone call, were triggered by the sight of numerous steely
grey bodies surging through the water approximately two hundred
metres ahead of the boat. Our binocular gaze, their manner of
movement through the water and gut feeling told us that they could
only be dugongs. At last we had found what we had spent so long
searching for and while the mermaid may be a myth of our imagination,
the dugong herds about which we had read were clearly fact, not
fiction. It soon became apparent that we were moving through a
herd of about one hundred and fifty individuals. They were mainly
adults but a few calves were also clearly visible, cruising close
to the adult’s torpedo like bodies.
Now we were truly in the midst of the herd. They were surfacing
and exhaling all around the boat, some even crossing directly
in front of our bows. Their backs were distinctively marked with
deep scars and it was tempting to conjecture that these were the
result of propeller injuries but we knew that this was quite unlikely
since they are so rarely reported by fishermen that it seems doubtful
that they would have much close contact with their boats.
While Kathy spoke to the film producer from her portable telephone,
enthusiastically describing our exciting encounter with so many
dugongs, we remained with the herd. For approximately an hour
we watched mesmerised as the sea-cows swam around our boat, apparently
unafraid of us although they did not exhibit the typical curiosity
of dolphins. After lingering with this herd, confident that they
were not suddenly going to disappear, we decided that we should
not alarm them unnecessarily. Before they tired completely of
our company we quietly bid them adieu, increased our speed, and
headed off in search of any other herds.
As we did so however the wind rose, throwing up a choppier sea,
and making dugong-spotting almost impossible. It reached a point
where every wave, seen against the light, appeared to be a dugong
snout pushing through the surface of the sea. With mixed feelings
of elation at the success of our long search but frustrated by
our failure to find more dugongs, we returned to shore. Meanwhile
wheels were turning back in London.
Within two days of Kathy’s telephone call the camera crew from
Britain had arrived in Bahrain. It was with more than a small
degree of trepidation that she accompanied them on the helicopter
on the following day. Fears that the marine mammals would have
vanished into thin air proved groundless however and within twenty
minutes of take-off they were circling over a group of at least
fifty animals with cameraman Philip Lovel hanging so far out of
the ‘copter that the thought did occur that there might shortly
be 51 mammals down below, one of whom did not think sea-grass
was all that tasty!
The dugongs were shortly to be joined by a cameraman, but fortunately
not Philip. In an operation executed with military precision,
the helicopter pilot guided in our motor-boat so that the underwater
cameraman could swim with the sea-cows. Unfortunately however
the dugong had moved into a shallow area among the reefs just
north of Um Jalid. As they swam through this area they stirred
up the mud so much that the cameraman was only able to obtain
views of the animals in murky water.
Time and financial restraints meant that the crew soon had to
return to UK. Although we have continued to search for dugongs
around Bahrain we have never again come as close as we did on
that memorable day of February 12th 1992. Early this year, again
in February, a herd of a hundred or so was sighted by helicopter
to the south of Bahrain. It’s one thing for Dugongs to have these
annual parties but quite another to receive an invitation to attend!
(Editor’s note: The largest herd of dugongs ever reported also
occurred in these waters, in February 1986.)