Executive Summary:

This project was undertaken by Community Centred Conservation (C3) and C3 Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands Programme. The report from the project can be found to the right.

Background:

This study was proposed in 2008 to confirm whether or not dugongs (Dugong dugon) were indeed extinct from Mauritius and Rodrigues and if so, to determine the approximate timing of this extinction through systematic research study. The dugong is classified as extinct from Mauritius and native to Rodrigues; however its status is also noted as ‘unknown’ and the reliability of the information as ‘no information’ (IUCN 2009). The latest review of information on dugongs in the western Indian Ocean was based on a literature review in each country, supplemented by interviews with fishers in 2002-2003 (WWF-EAME 2004). The report states that ‘dugongs are thought to have disappeared from Mauritius’ although this had not been confirmed by scientific studies and no interviews were conducted on either Mauritius or Rodrigues.