dugongs are present in this area, albeit in limited numbers, concentrating mostly in the strait that separates Singapore from peninsular Malaysia. Still, their numbers have never been estimated. Around the year 1970 they were considered extinct, but later aerial surveys have confirmed that a few dozen specimen have survived. In May 1999 nineteen adults and a young one were sighted during an aerial recognition flight in the islands of Pulau Besar and Pulau Rawa, in the south east of the peninsula.