In 1997, the Chinese white dolphin beat out the panda to become the official mascot of Hong Kong’s handover to China. It has proved to be a tenacious creature in the years since, hanging in there as its territory is increasingly threatened by the rampant development of the Pearl River Delta. According to Hong Kong Dolphinwatch, around 100 Chinese white dolphins live in Hong Kong waters, while the Pearl River Delta population as a whole is thought to number around 1000.
Hong Kong’s Pink Dolphin
The undoubted stars of Hong Kong’s fledgling eco-tourism drive, Chinese white dolphins are actually a rosy pink. The color is thought to arise from blood being flushed to the outer layers of the skin to regulate body temperature as the dolphins exert themselves in the water. Either that, or they are blushing from all the attention they receive from the boats of Hong Kong Dolphinwatch, which takes tours out to the waters north of Lantau Island three times a week.
The Chinese white dolphin (Sousa chinensis) is the local name for the Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin, which can be found, usually in coastal waters, all the way from Africa to China to northern Australia. Little is known about them with any certainty, as there was little scientific research done until the 1990s, and the reason for their unique coloring remains a mystery.
Apart from reports by travelers such as the Swedish explorer Per Osbeck in the eighteenth century, the white dolphin has been little noted. It was only in the early 1990s when the new airport at Chek Lap Kok, off the northern coast of Lantau island – right in the middle of the dolphins’ habitat – was built, that the dolphins come into the spotlight.
Threats to the Chinese White Dolphin
In April 2008, experts attending a World Wildlife Fund Hong Kong (WWF) workshop to review available information on the Pearl River population were clear about the threats they face. These include pollution, ongoing land reclamation, overfishing and shipping. Nowhere else on earth does a dolphin population exist under such intense man-made pressure.
A number of major engineering projects in the dolphins’ habitat, among them a proposed third runway for the airport and a monumental 30-kilometre bridge link to Macau, are being planned. The destruction of shorelines not only damages the dolphins’ habitat, it also destroys fish breeding grounds. Hong Kong waters are severely over-fished, and its commercial fishery now sees catch rates of only one quarter of what they used to be in the 1970s, and much of the catch now is juveniles. The World Wildlife Fund has warned that ecosystem collapse is a real possibility.
The Chinese white dolphin has a number of champions, such as the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society (HKDCS) and Hong Kong Dolphinwatch, which are working to safeguard the dolphins and their environment.
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