Thai conservationists hunt for dugong poop in race to save endangered marine mammal

But first they have to find the faeces – a green fist-sized ball consisting of the seagrass the gentle dugongs graze on daily in the coastal shallows of the Andaman Sea.

It is literally drop-in-the-ocean work for the teams using drones to spot dugongs – who number only around 200 – and then sending boats to reach areas where they may have defecated before the faeces can wash away.

Veterinarians and conservationists have collected just five samples so far – a small but crucial haul helping scientists build a database of the surviving creatures and identify other food formulas the dugong could adopt as its seagrass nourishment vanishes due to ocean warming.