Dugongs are the only strictly herbivorous marine mammals, depending entirely on seagrass meadows for survival. Their slow reproduction and specialist diet make them especially vulnerable to habitat and human pressures.
Dugongs face chronic welfare pressures from the degradation of their seagrass habitat across most of their range. Nutritional stress when seagrass meadows are degraded forces dugongs to travel further and consume lower quality food. Boat strikes cause traumatic injury - propeller cuts, broken ribs and internal bleeding - with similar injuries to those suffered by manatees. Entanglement in fishing nets causes drowning in animals that must surface regularly to breathe. The slow reproductive rate - females produce one calf every 3-7 years - means population recovery from welfare-related mortality is extremely slow. In areas like Queensland, dugong populations are declining due to the combination of habitat loss from water quality degradation and ongoing mortality from boats and nets.