Dugongs vs. Tiger Sharks | National Geographic

Australia’s Shark Bay is home to over
10,000 dugongs it seems like a perfect
spot for these air-breathing herbivores
the water is shallow and peppered with
beds of seagrass the dugongs main source
of food biologist Erin were Singh has
come here from Canada to study the
dugong we know almost nothing about its
habitat use patterns its feeding habits
and the way it gets along with some of
its major predators like tiger sharks
the tiger shark a beautiful agile and
powerful hunter is the one thing that
keeps Shark Bay from being a paradise
for the slow-moving dugongs named for
their stripes tiger sharks are massive
warm water predators capable of growing
over 14 feet long and reaching weights
of 2,000 pounds seems like a bit of a
mismatch for the smaller dugongs which
are more closely related to the elephant
than to other seafaring mammals like
seals and walruses and there’s a very
interesting race going on right here in
Shark Bay between dugongs and tiger
sharks to get a closer look at that race
from the perspective of the dugongs our
team deploys some critter cams
the team is eager to learn what they can
about how these clumsy looking
vegetarians managed to evade the tiger
sharks there are a few surprises in
store the dugongs are going much deeper
than Aaron thought but there’s not
nearly as much food down here as there
is in the shallower waters still the
critter camp
team believes that feeding at greater
depth may be how the dugongs managed to
evade the Sharks shallow water means
tiger sharks so dugongs do a lot of
their foraging in deep water where the
tiger sharks don’t hunt another of
nature’s mystery solved
thanks to a dedicated team of scientists
and Crittercam