An alert from a member of the public set off a coordinated rescue after a dugong was found struggling at Wapet Creek, south of Exmouth in Western Australia. The tidal estuary is popular with flat fishers, ABC News reported. Pilbara Parks and Wildlife Service staff freed the animal from a vehicle fan belt and helped carry it over a sandbar into Exmouth Gulf, according to the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA).
The team nicknamed the young dugong Wapi after the creek where it was found. It was around two metres long, and about 15 responders returned it to deeper water in less than 24 hours, ABC reported. Wapet Creek lies near Exmouth, about 1,230 kilometres north of Perth.
Before cutting the rubber belt away, the team assessed Wapi and sought advice from specialists at Perth Zoo and the Sea World Foundation. ABC said responders restrained it for the work. Acting marine program coordinator Sam Miles told ABC the team had not seen a dugong tangled in a fan belt before and did not know where it picked up the entanglement. The cited accounts do not identify a cause, so the story does not assign blame.
Once free, the animal still needed help across the sandbar. Responders wrapped it in a cargo net and hoisted it from the shallows over the sand, back toward deeper water. Acting marine program coordinator Sam Miles told ABC that even a two-metre dugong can weigh a couple of hundred kilograms. He called the group effort “heartening,” saying it took “all hands on deck” to move the animal.
DBCA's public post credits a fast report with allowing staff to respond and urges people to report sick or entangled marine animals. Neither DBCA nor ABC named the person who alerted authorities. Their accounts show a handoff from a community call to wildlife staff, with specialists at Perth Zoo and Sea World offering advice before the lift. Miles also described the outcome as a morale boost after a challenging year of entanglements along the remote Ningaloo coast.
After Wapi swam away, Helene Marsh, a dugong scientist and professor emeritus in conservation science at James Cook University, told ABC she was delighted by the animal's strong movement. ABC also reported that responders saw no major distress when they found it. Those are observations from the rescue and immediate release. The ABC report and DBCA post do not establish Wapi's later condition.
ABC reported that Exmouth Gulf has Western Australia's second-highest concentration of dugongs, behind Shark Bay. The outlet also reported that a marine heatwave during summer 2025 damaged some seagrass stocks in the gulf. Dugongs feed exclusively on seagrass, according to the Australian Museum, so the habitat context matters to the species. The sources do not connect the heatwave to Wapi's entanglement or describe any population effect from this rescue.
The Australian Museum says dugongs prefer wide, shallow bays and are relatively abundant in Australian waters, where they are legally protected. The Australian Museum says the species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. That distinction gives context without suggesting that one release changed a population trend. Marsh told ABC that protecting dugongs matters for animal welfare, science and cultural reasons, alongside their conservation significance.
There is also a biological reason that dugongs receive careful attention. The Australian Museum says a pregnancy lasts about 12 to 14 months, and a young dugong may continue nursing for roughly 18 months. Females can go between 2.5 and seven years before calving again. The museum says this low reproductive rate has implications for conservation and can leave dugongs vulnerable to dramatic declines from human activity.
A video recorded by a DBCA staff member captured someone calling “yadiyarra,” identified by ABC as the Baiyungu word for dugong, as Wapi swam away. Another helper joked, “And stay out.” The short exchange adds a local human coda to the work of freeing and moving the animal.
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