{"id":941926,"date":"2026-10-26T20:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941926\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T20:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T20:44:13","slug":"rescuers-hoist-entangled-dugong-to-safety-off-exmouth-in-wa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/941926\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescuers hoist entangled dugong to safety off Exmouth in WA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wildlife officials have hailed the “all hands” rescue of a young dugong tangled in a car fanbelt along Western Australia’s north-west coast.<\/p>\n

The globally vulnerable marine mammal was spotted struggling on Wednesday at Wapet Creek, a tidal estuary popular with flat fishers near Exmouth, 1,230 kilometres north of Perth.<\/p>\n

Roughly two metres long, it took 15 responders less than 24 hours to return the dugong to deeper water.<\/p>\n

“This was a smaller animal,” said Sam Miles, acting marine program coordinator at WA’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA).<\/p>\n

“But even a two-metre dugong can weigh a couple of hundred kilograms.”\"Gloved<\/p>\n

The animal was wrapped in a cargo net before being hoisted over sand flats. (Supplied: DBCA)<\/p>\n

The crew dubbed the dugong “Wapi” for the creek where it was found.<\/p>\n

After assessing its health and contacting experts at Perth Zoo and the Sea World Foundation for advice, the group restrained the dugong before cutting it free.<\/p>\n

They wrapped Wapi in a cargo net, hoisted it up from the shallows and over a sandbar back to sea.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Rescuers moved at a steady clip to get the marine mammal back in the water. (Supplied: DBCA)<\/p>\n

Mr Miles said the team effort was “heartening”.<\/p>\n

“It took all hands on deck to lift the animal over the sand flats and back into the gulf,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Dugongs are endangered and we know that every dugong we save will help the overall population in the Exmouth Gulf.”<\/p>\n

Species under pressure<\/p>\n

The dugong was caught in the rubber fanbelt of a car, bewildering its rescuers.<\/p>\n

“We haven’t seen entanglements in this kind of thing before, so we’re not sure where it picked the entanglement up,” Mr Miles said.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t showing any signs of major distress, which was really important.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Sam Miles says a quick report from the public helped save the dugong. (Supplied: DBCA)<\/p>\n

Exmouth Gulf is home to WA’s second highest concentration of dugongs, behind Shark Bay.<\/p>\n

But the gentle species is increasingly under threat around the country.<\/p>\n

In the gulf, a record-breaking marine heatwave during the summer of 2025 devastated some seagrass stocks<\/a>, scorching two varieties of the dugong’s preferred food source.<\/p>\n

Last month, aerial surveys of Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria revealed its dugong population had suffered a 50 per cent drop in the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

Huge dugong population decline<\/a><\/p>\n

The number of dugongs in the Gulf of Carpentaria has halved in the past two decades.<\/p>\n

Helene Marsh, professor emeritus in conservation science at James Cook University, said she was “delighted” to see the animal move so strongly following its release.<\/p>\n

“Australia’s unquestionably the dugong capital of the world,” she said, adding that they should be protected for animal welfare, scientific and cultural reasons.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re starting to understand we don’t only need to protect animals because of their conservation significance, but we also need to think about their cultural significance.”<\/p>\n

Mr Miles said the rescue was a much-needed morale booster after a challenging year of entanglements<\/a> off the remote Ningaloo coast.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes we don’t have the same positive outcomes,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a video captured by one of the DBCA staff, they can be heard calling out “yadiyarra\u201d, or dugong in the language of the gulf’s Baiyungu traditional owners, as it swims off.<\/p>\n

“And stay out,” one of the helpers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildlife officials have hailed the “all hands” rescue of a young dugong tangled in a car fanbelt along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,2929,46285,32961,509142,509141,38817,509143,85061,233462,80429,26871,22103,509147,94599,85063,16802,509145,128,45,509146,509140,509144,338],"class_list":["post-941926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-conservation","tag-dbca","tag-dugong","tag-dugong-rescue","tag-dugong-sighting","tag-entangled","tag-exmouth-animals","tag-exmouth-gulf","tag-exmouth-news","tag-feel-good","tag-gascoyne-news","tag-good-news","tag-helene-marsh","tag-marine-mammal","tag-ningaloo-coast","tag-pilbara-news","tag-sam-miles","tag-science","tag-wa-news","tag-was-department-of-biodiversity","tag-wapet-creek","tag-wapi","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}