Marine and Coastal Resources Department is to hold an urgent meeting with experts from the World Wildlife Fund to discuss how to save dugongs, after six have been found dead in just the first four days of December.
Three were found in the sea off Krabi province and the others off Trang province. All were adults and are believed to have died from natural causes, probably due to prolonged starvation.
Their carcasses have been sent to the marine resources research centre in Phuket to determine the exact causes of death.
Researchers say that they found abnormalities in the hearts and lungs of the dugongs and that they had not eaten properly for a long time, making them weak and vulnerable to disease.
The World Wildlife Fund will bring, from abroad, experts in the rehabilitation of seagrass, the main staple food of dugongs, to help Thai officials in the planning and management of seagrass rehabilitation and to find alternative food sources.
Officials from the department have found that the feeding grounds in the seas off Krabi, which covered about 1,220 hectares, used to be full of seagrass, but only 25% of it is left and it is mostly in a poor condition.
