Management Concern: Low    

Adequacy of Information: Good

Summary extract from Outlook Report 2009

• Numbers of dugongs have declined drastically along the 'urban coast' but may now be stabilising. The remote coast population does not appear to have changed.
  
• Most of the routine defence training activities carried out in the Great Barrier Reef have negligible impacts. Individual high impact activities are carefully managed and confined to specific localised areas, and limited to a few weeks per year.

What do we know?

Relevant pages from Outlook Online include:

• Historical population estimates for dugongs in the Great Barrier Reef
• Dugong protection areas in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
• Boat strikes and dugongs
• Prioritising areas for dugong conservation in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park using a spatially explicit population model
• Dugong mortality in Queensland
• Assessment of risks to dugongs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
• PBR modelling of dugong populations along the urban coast
• Life history, pattern of breeding and population dynamics of the dugong
• Aerial Surveys for dugongs in the Southern Great Barrier Reef
• Shark control records hindcast serious decline in dugong numbers off the urban coast of Queensland
• Aerial surveys for dugongs in the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait
• PBR Modelling of dugong populations along the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait
• Movement heterogeneity of dugongs over large spatial scales 
• Dugong movement in the Townsville-Cardwell Region
• Defence - Outlook Report 2009 supporting information
• Outlook Report 2009 Information Sheet - Defence [184KB]
• Impact of anthropogenic noise on marine mammals

Existing policies and management actions

• GBRMPA Position Statement on the Conservation of Dugongs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park [170KB]
  
• Protected Species in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
• The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan
• Environmental impact assessment

Future management requirements

• Planned review of Dugong Watching Policy
  
• Development of the Commonwealth Dugong Wildlife Conservation Plan
  
• Development of the Queensland Marine Mammal Conservation Plan
  
• Biodiversity strategy

Defined research questions

• There are currently no defined research questions for this topic. Research questions will be developed, giving priority to interactions/issues that are of most concern to management.

Related information

• Current Research and Monitoring