Dugong

Photo: Luis P. B. · CC BY-NC

Dugong have been recorded in the seagrass meadows just inside Mwahnd Passage during the calmer months, making Pohnpei one of the very few Micronesian islands where this mammal is still occasionally seen. They graze on Halophila and Thalassia seagrasses in the lagoon shallows, leaving distinctive feeding trails through the grass that operators use to identify active areas before committing to a slow drift in search of the animals. Encounters are genuinely rare and cannot be guaranteed, but their presence is a measure of the overall ecological intactness of the southern lagoon.