Oceans have covered more than 70% of the water on this planet, and oceans are been the major source of transportation, sustenance, commerce, and growth. The fact is, it’s just less than 10% of the global ocean that is mapped today with the help of the latest technologies and more than 80% of this ocean is a vast, underwater arena that remains unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored yet. We cannot give the exact numbers of the Species that are in the oceans because it is vast but it can be seen that species in the oceans are continuously decreasing.

We are continuously seeing water pollution that is caused by the increment in technology’s development and mankind’s activities. This water pollution threatens the life of aquatic animals and one day it will also threaten human life too. Hundreds of aquatic animals are dying every day, and some marine species are going to extinct, they are endangered. We can give an estimated idea that has been found after the research, that there are over 2 million marine species that reside in oceans. Many species were sad to go extinct due to pollution, climate change, and acidification even before they were found. Here is one of the known species that are going to extinct called Dugongs.

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Dugongs are also known as sea cows as they are so peaceful. China has declared that these species are now functionally extinct in China. The peaceful mammal has vanished from the coastlines of Asia and Africa. Dugongs are similar to the manatee. They have similar plump figures and paddle-like tails, which is said to be the mermaid, in mythology. So many people have mistaken dugongs for mermaids after seeing that the animal, they have given a scientific name Sirenia, similar to the sirens from ancient Greek mythology.

As they look like mermaids but are not, we can call as mermaid doppelgangers which are officially extinct in China. A Dugong species hasn’t been found since 2008. This marks the first-reported functional extinction of a large vertebrate in China, whose marine are destroying due to overfishing and habitat loss. Functional extinction means that even if there are a few dugongs still left off China, then their numbers are too small to maintain enough population.

However, there are about 100,000 dugongs living in the other coastal waters of 40 other countries, like Japan. These peaceful Dugongs giants move slowly, walking on their pectoral fins to graze on seagrass in the coastal waters of Asia and Africa. But due to the advancement of technology in marine water, like motorboats, dugong populations have suffered many accidental deaths and injuries. 

But their absence will not only have a sudden effect on ecosystem function but it serves as a wake-up call for us if they cannot protect now then they will also count as engendered species and one day they will extinct. 

Mankind’s activities impacted the earth in various ways, we should reduce those activities by acquiring sustainable change in the environment.

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