New Dolphin Numbers Fail To Impress Green Group

A dolphin conservation group says it's too early to suggest that the SAR's population of Chinese white dolphins is bouncing back – even after government figures showed that the species' numbers recovered last year.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department-commissioned report, published on Friday, estimated Chinese white dolphin abundance in Hong Kong waters to be 52 in 2019, up from an all-time low of 32 the year before.

But Vincent Ho, from the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, said while the rebound is positive, the overall trend for dolphin numbers is in decline.

“I won’t conclude it’s a signal of recovery of the dolphins,” he told RTHK’s Richard Pyne. “We still need to wait for maybe four or five years to look at the overall trend to tell if it is recovering or if it is just some annual fluctuation.”

The report, compiled by the Hong Kong Cetacean Research Project, said a total of 524 Chinese white dolphins were spotted during surveys between April 2019 and March this year.

They were sighted frequently along Lantau’s west and southwest coasts, but not so frequently in north Lantau.

The report said that in north Lantau, there was apparently “no sign of recovery” after the completion of construction works for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge in 2016. It also noticed a decline in dolphin usage of marine parks in the area.

Ho said a re-think is needed on strategies designed to mitigate the impact of major construction works on dolphin habitats.

He suggested high-speed ferry routes between Macau and Hong Kong be moved further south to protect dolphin populations in the area, after the report said more dolphins had been spotted there.

The report suggested that a decrease in ferry volume in the area may have provided a safer and less noisy passage for dolphins.

The AFCD report also noticed a slight increase in the number of dolphin calves spotted compared to the year before.

But Ho said that this was still far below the numbers cited a decade ago.

“This still casts a very worrisome future for the population,” he said. “If the situation is still at this low level, I can’t foresee a real recovery for the whole dolphin population.”