A young dugong found tangled in an old car fan belt in Western Australia has been freed and returned to deeper water, ABC News reports. The animal, about two metres long, was spotted in Wapet Creek, a tidal estuary near Exmouth, around 1,230 kilometres north of Perth.
Fifteen responders from the state’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions and local volunteers took less than a day to cut it loose. With the tide against them, they wrapped the dugong in a cargo net and carried it across a sandbar to the open gulf. The team nicknamed it Wapi, after the creek where it was found.
Every animal counts. Dugongs are listed as vulnerable worldwide, and Exmouth Gulf holds the second-largest concentration of them in Western Australia after Shark Bay. The department’s Sam Miles told the ABC that each dugong saved helps the wider population in the gulf.
Source: ABC News