Once picked as the official mascot for the 1997 Handover, Hong Kong’s endangered pink dolphins may soon disappear from local waters if little is done to protect them.
Story by James Louie
© Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch
Urmston Road is a broad expanse of murky, pale green water that sweeps between the jagged peaks around Tuen Mun and Lantau, before funnelling to the mouth of the Pearl River. Named after a one-time China chief of the British East India Company, the busy shipping channel is also a favoured artery for an unlikely group of Hong Kong residents.
The endangered Chinese White Dolphin (Sousa chinensis) – known for its unusual bubblegum pink colour – has long been accustomed to this inshore passage, riding the currents all year round in search of food and places to breed. Its presence was first recorded in Western literature by an English adventurer, Peter Mundy, during a voyage in 1637.
Like whales, the dolphins rely on echolocation to communicate and forage for prey, a crucial survival skill in the muddy waters of the Pearl River Estuary. They send out high-pitched calls and whistles, navigating by listening to the echoes that bounce off nearby objects. But in an environment where sound travels almost five times faster than it does in air, the pink dolphins are often exposed to an incessant cacophony.
Janet Walker, who has been with Hong Kong Dolphinwatch for the past 16 years, stands on the top deck of a junk, scanning the wind-whipped waves for signs of the resident cetaceans. “Someone once donated a hydrophone,” she says. “We tried it out a few times but we couldn’t hear any dolphin noises. All you could hear was the boat traffic.”
Urmston Road presents a scenario where two important seaborne highways, one natural and one man-made, uncomfortably overlap. According to research from the Trade Development Council, almost 30% of cargo shipped from Hong Kong’s container port – now the third-busiest in the world – are sent by boat from manufacturing hubs around the Pearl River Delta. The trade reached 80.4 million tonnes last year, an eight-fold increase compared to 1990 levels.
Walker points out a nearby container terminal at Tuen Mun and the booming district of Shekou, the latter marked by a wall of bright red shipping cranes on the smoky horizon. “In this channel alone about 70 vessels an hour pass through at peak times,” she says.
Dr. Samuel Hung, Chairman of the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, admits that the problem of underwater noise is “staggering”. In a 2012 research report commissioned by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), he concluded that high-speed ferries were the major cause of increased noise levels within cetacean habitats.
According to Dr. Hung, the sheer volume of high-speed traffic has created an environment where “it would be stressful for dolphins to navigate based on the unpredictability of the vessel movements with varying speed and distances.”
The study collected almost 11 hours of acoustic recordings from stations around Lantau, including an area of intense boat traffic around the island’s southwest tip. An analysis of underwater background noise found that levels here were “markedly higher” than those of nearby sites, and increases in high-speed ferry trips could result in “either chronic physiological damage in their hearing or displacing them from their favourable habitat within the shipping channel.”
Each year as many as 120,000 high-speed ferry trips operate between Hong Kong and Macau, while tens of thousands shuttle to and from ports further up the Pearl River Estuary. The total amount grew almost 50% between 1999 and 2010, a figure that correlates with a significant decline in local dolphin numbers.
On the far side of Lantau, dolphin sightings have dropped since the 2003 opening of SkyPier, which serves the international airport on Chek Lap Kok. Dr. Hung’s report named it as a key contributor to the increase in high-speed traffic passing through Urmston Road. The latest statistics from the Airport Authority indicate a throughput of 2.6 million ferry passengers per year, with over 50,000 recorded in the first week of October alone – thanks to China’s National Day holiday.
Just beyond the pier, jet engines scream overhead while a swarm of heavy equipment, sand barges, dredgers and containment booms occupy the space between sea and sky. Government plans reveal a square island of 130 hectares, serving as a border crossing and the entrance to a multibillion-dollar bridge linking Hong Kong to Macau and Zhuhai.
Once complete, the 42-kilometre bridge and tunnel link is slated to become the longest sea-crossing in the world. While authorities on both sides have agreed to avoid percussive piling, steel cylinders 22 metres across are being vibrated into the seabed to help create two artificial islands. On the Hong Kong section of the bridge, where construction has only just begun in earnest, Dr. Hung warns that “intensive bored piling activities will persist in the next few years.”
Sadly, this link straddling prime dolphin territory is not the first major disturbance wrought by a large-scale infrastructure project.
Only 20 years ago the sheltered waters around Chek Lap Kok were an important habitat until 938 hectares were reclaimed from the sea – raising Hong Kong’s total land area by almost 1%. During construction on the new airport, dolphins beached on site were found to have ear infections, most likely caused by blasting work.
The Airport Authority now plans to reclaim an additional 650 hectares for a third runway, amid claims that the existing two will reach full capacity by 2017. If the project is forced through its environmental impact assessment, as has been done with similar schemes in the past, the dolphins may be pushed further into dire straits.
In this climate, green groups have stepped up their efforts to raise awareness and protect the species. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) entered a pink dolphin named ‘Ruby’ in this year’s Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant, as “a desperate cry for help on behalf of these beautiful and intelligent creatures”. Although her application was turned down, Ruby has since garnered more than 26,000 signatures in an online petition calling for an enlarged marine park in southwest Lantau and the Soko Islands.
Both areas had already been proposed and endorsed as marine parks by May 2002, and a government document stated that these would be gazetted in August or September that year, with final designation set for early 2003. Neither one has since been created.
Earlier this month a member of the Legislative Council raised the issue to the Secretary for the Environment, Mr. Wong Kam-sing, who declared in a written response that the government “had not shelved the plan to designate the proposed marine parks.”
He explained that the relevant fishermen’s and rural associations had objected to the designation in 2009, voicing doubts about speed restrictions in the parks, and fears of a further reduction in fishing grounds. “We have to consider the stakeholders’ views carefully before taking forward the plan,” Wong wrote. He added that the government would carry out “preliminary preparatory work” and continue in their efforts to gain support from stakeholders.
© Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch
But there are encouraging signs of a shift elsewhere. In May 2011, Hong Kong became a party to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, which was first created at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Under the obligations of the treaty, the Environment Bureau and the AFCD are currently developing a biodiversity plan to be implemented by 2015.
Over the past ten months, the government has formed a steering committee, held focus group meetings with academics and environmentalists, and engaged in a round of public consultation. Still, organisations like Hong Kong Dolphinwatch remain doubtful of its true impact.
Back on the junk boat, Janet Walker doesn’t mince her words. By her own admission the outlook for Hong Kong’s pink dolphins is “grim”. A statement released this June by the Dolphin Conservation Society recorded a dwindling population of 61, down from 158 just a decade ago. She reveals that the current tally has dropped even further.
“So we do still see babies, which is great, but even in the last year or so we’ve lost another 10 or 12 dolphins out of a population of about 65, so we’re down into the fifties now.” Behind a pair of glasses tinted rose in the midday sun, Walker’s eyes are visibly bloodshot. “I would hate to only say they’ve got five years.” AA
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