General appearance and disposition

General appearance and disposition of all 30 dugongs upon capture suggested that they were apparently healthy animals and suitable candidates for out-of-water sampling. Dugongs were evaluated in terms of body girth, condition of epidermis, and absence of external signs of disease or fresh injury.
Restraint of dugongs in water for initial sampling and tagging followed previously established protocols (Lanyon et al., 2002, 2006b). During out-of-water sampling, none of the 30 sampled