PUBLISHED: 7 Nov 2024 at 05: 50
A marine biologist has warned that due to the diminishing source of grass, which is their main source of food, habitat groups in the Andaman Sea are expected to decline by 70 % over the next four years.
More action should be taken to protect and preserve the extremely rare species, according to Thon Thamrongnawasawat, who told the Bangkok Post on Wednesday. A crisis of diminishing grass resources is contributing to the drop of this aquatic animal.
Diverse organizations have been collaborating to enhance the grass resources that have been impacted by climate change.
Mr Thon, who is also the lieutenant dean of the Faculty of Fish at Kasetsart University, said 72 alligators died in 2023-2024 from a full community of 250 recorded in 2022 in the Andaman Sea.
Now, there are around 120 but that amount could rise to 70 in four decades, he said.
If we do n’t take more aggressive action to protect their food source, he said,” We will have less and less dugong populations.”
The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources ( DMCR ) has developed an urgent plan to address the crisis by providing Chinese cabbage to dugongs at a pilot site in Phuket’s Rawai beach.
The beach’s player page, which dugongs frequently visit to eat the seagrass there, was just launched by the DMCR.
The DMCR today offers four one-square-metre websites with four types of vegetables: day glory, bok choy, spinach and broccoli.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are also being used to gather information. So far only one dugong has approached one of the sites, but never eaten everything.
The DMCR is even researching other dugong products.
Despite reports of dugong observations in Penang, Mr. Thon stated that his team is collaborating with Malaysian experts.
He claimed that some people may have relocated from the Andaman Sea to a fresh food source in the neighboring nation.
Jatuporn Buruspat, continuous director at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, said their declining statistics are disturbing. He claimed that he has instructed his staff to take more serious measures to improve the region’s grass ovulation.
The DMCR and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives are collaborating to acquire their seeds for future plantations.
A plan to travel the alligators in the Andaman to the Gulf of Thailand, where grass is more abundant, was rejected by Mr. Jatuporn. He claimed that since the varieties is known to be extremely vulnerable to new environments, more research is needed before making such judgments.