Dugong Poop Tells a Lot

Questions about Dugong Poop
In the SDCC’s meetings with officials of the defense and environment ministries on April 14, one of the issues we focused on was the dugong poop, which was found in July 2022 about 2 km south of the Henoko base construction site and was reported for the first time in a report released in early April 2023 by the Nature Conservation Division of the Okinawa Prefectural Government. We asked questions regarding the poop, but many of the officials' answers were unsatisfactory. 

SDCC preparing for meetings with defence and environment ministries.
Also getting ready is, Doug the Dugong, a puppet created by art students of Georgetown University in the US in their support for Okinawa dugongs.

The defense ministry officials repeated that the ministry was aware of the finding of the poop and was reviewing whether it would propose the issues of the poop as a discussion agenda to the Environment Monitoring Committee for the Henoko base construction. The environment ministry officials stated that they were glad that the dugong poop was found because it proved the presence of dugongs on the east coast of Okinawa Island. They all fell short of making commitments to consider the report in their efforts to protect Okinawa dugongs. 
 
As unsatisfactory as their answers were, they were understandable in two regards. The Okinawa Prefectural Government's dugong report was released a week before the meetings. The SDCC’s questions submitted to the ministries a two weeks before the meetings did not include any questions about the dugong poop. That said, three points can be made here.
 
Lucky Dugongs = Observant and knowledgeable eyes and willingness to take action
The Okinawa media outlets and the Okinawa prefectural government’s report casually mentioned that a stand-up-paddle (SUP) boarder found the poop. We must realize, however, how lucky Okinawa dugongs and those of us who struggle to protect them are to have this SUP boarder.  
 
The SUP boarder knew what dugong feces would look like; the boarder was well aware of the plight of the Okinawa dugong, and most importantly, the boarder knew what to do. The boarder scooped the poop from the waters and contacted a relevant organization to study it.  
 
Without the boarder’s observant and knowledgeable eyes and willingness to take action, we would still be under the impression that dugongs had been chased away from the Henoko-Oura Bay area. Okinawa dugongs and we are all lucky. That leads us to question the competence of the Okinawa Defense Bureau, which is supposed to monitor Okinawa dugongs in and around the base construction site. 

Ugan-jima in Kushi: The SUP boarder found dugong poop in this area. 

Keep Questioning the competence of the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the Environment Monitoring Committee.
During the SDCC meeting with the defense ministry officials, like other environment and civil groups have done, we urged that the Bureau stop construction work and conduct a thorough survey on dugongs in the Kushi area where the dugong poop was found.  However, we spent more time questioning the competence of the Okinawa Defense Bureau in monitoring dugongs and the Environment Monitoring Committee in advising on dugongs. 

 

What we have witnessed over the years is the incompetence (deliberate or not) of the Okinawa Defense Bureau to conduct proper EIA, the unwillingness of the Bureau to release critical information, and the questionable views held by members of the Environmental Monitoring Committee that dugongs around Okinawa Island are extinct. We are concerned that the Bureau’s survey team and the Environmental Monitoring Committee are all part of the factors for the plights of Okinawa dugongs.  
 
During the meeting, we reminded the officials of the Defense Ministry of what the Welch 2010 report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense in the course of the Dugong case in the U.S. court, said about the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s EIA studies. I read out loud (Japanese translation) the following quotations.
 

The studies conducted for the EIA (Okinawa Defense Bureau 2009) provide little of value here, as there are questions about the experience of observers and the suitability of specific survey methods, and the surveys were not used to provide quantitative measures of the population’s status. Without such a program, it will be difficult to impossible to assess the potential adverse effects of the FRF, develop appropriate mitigation measures, and evaluate the success of mitigation measures. [p95].

 
Following that, we asked the defense officials what training the current dugong survey crew underwent and what qualifications the crew has. The officials just dodged our questions. 
 
We also criticized, again, that the Okinawa Defense Bureau and the Defense Ministry have not released the recordings of what an expert consulted by the Defense Ministry considers dugong calls.  
 
We further reminded, again, the officials of how the Sirenian Specialist Group (SSG) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) regarded a draft article on the Okinawa dugong written and submitted to the Scientific Reports by members of the Environmental Monitoring Committee.  The SSG wrote and send a letter to the Okinawa Prefectural Government regarding the article in May 2021, and the letter states:  
 

A preprint of a paper under consideration by the journal Scientific Reports by Hara et al. claiming that the dugong is extinct in Okinawa has come to the attention of the IUCN Sirenia Specialist Group, the expert group established by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to provide advice on the conservation science of dugongs and manatees. We note that the paper is under review by the journal and has not been accepted for publication. 

 

The purpose of this letter is to advise you that the claim that the dugong is extinct in Okinawa has no status even if the paper is published. In December 2019, IUCN listed the Nansei population of the dugong as Critically Endangered on the basis of the following listing assessment:

 
While a substantially revised version of the draft article was published in the Scientific Reports in April 2022, the SSG's comments firmly stand with the growing evidence, the discovery of dugong feeding trails and dugong feces along the northern coast of Okinawa Island in the last two years (see the Okinawa prefectural government reports). These all assert that dugongs are trying to survive and need effective protection measures, such as establishing a protection area. 
 
The Defense Bureau's EIA, its monitoring surveys, and the Environmental Monitoring Committee have never protected the dugongs. Instead, in collaboration, they have helped the Bureau chase away dugongs from the Henoko-Oura Bay area while allowing the destruction of much of the seagrass meadows in Henoko. The competency of these systems needs to be questioned as repeatedly, vigorously , and widely as possible. 
 
Timely release and sharing of dugong Information is a must.
During the meeting with the Ministry of the Environment, we were surprised to know that there had been no information sharing on the dugong poop between the Okinawa prefectural government and the environment ministry until the prefectural government released the report. This critical information sat on hold for quite some time as the Okinawa prefectural government adhered to publishing its dugong report once a year. (The Ministry of the Environment also publishes its dugong report once a year.) No collaborative efforts for dugong conservation by the prefectural government and the environment ministry have been taken based upon the finding of the dugong poop.
 
In fact, as far as I am aware, this is the second time the Okinawa prefectural government has failed big to release and share critical information on dugongs in a timely manner. 
 
In April 2021, when the draft version of the dugong extinction paper mentioned above appeared in the Scientific Reports, I contacted and requested the Sirenian Specialists Group (SSG) of the IUCN to review the draft article and take action. The SSG took my request as urgent and carefully examined a range of issues and implications involved, including the IUCN and SSG’s mandates and the authors’ academic freedom. As mentioned above, the SSG decided to write and send a letter to the Okinawa Prefectural Government in May 2021. (they sent both the original English letter and its Japanese translation translation). It stated, “The purpose of this letter is to advise you that the claim that the dugong is extinct in Okinawa has no status even if the paper is published. In December 2019, IUCN listed the Nansei population of the dugong as Critically Endangered on the basis of the following listing assessment.” 
 
In writing and sending the letter, the SSG showed its professionalism and commitment to protecting dugongs in the world.  
 
The Okinawa prefectural government sat on the letter for several months, however. The prefectural government had never made it public until late 2021 when it uploaded the letter on its website. No press release or public announcement was made even when it uploaded the SSG letter. We don’t know why there was such a delay and why the prefectural government failed to grasp the importance of the letter and of letting the public know about the letter. In fact, to date, the prefectural government has not been able to articulate the significance of the letter and how much the IUCN pays attention to the Okinawa dugong or the northernmost dugong in the world.  
 
To save the surviving dugongs on the coasts of Okinawa Island amidst the base construction work, the Okinawa prefectural government needs to change its practices and attitudes. We all know that collecting and analyzing data and writing a finalized report takes time. However, publishing a report once a year does not lead to effective protection measures. Between the final annual reports, interim reports need to be published so that effective and timely action can be taken and the public can become more involved in reporting dugong sightings and poop scooping. The prefectural government can do this by building upon its current efforts most notably, its dugong information portal, which is designed to gather and disseminate to the public information on dugongs, feeding trails, and poop.  

Okinawa prefectural government's dugong portal site.

Moreover, the Okinawa prefectural government must seek information and input related to dugongs more vigilantly from institutions outside Japan, such as the SSG, the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, and even the U.S. Department of Defense. They have followed the plight of the Okinawa dugong and have helpful information, be it scientific or legal. The prefectural government also needs to do its best to provide these institutions with its own information on Okinawa dugongs and request them to take proper action to conserve this endangered and iconic species. They need to do so in a way that the Okinawa public and international civil society can see the interactions between the prefectural government and these institutions. 

As much as the Okinawa dugong needs people with observant and knowledgeable eyes and willingness to take action, to protect Okinawa dugongs, the Okinawa prefectural government needs to realize that it must work more closely with international institutions with observant and knowledgeable eyes and willingness to take action.