(TAN): While one group of scientists are racing against time to create a vaccine to contain the pandemic, another group can’t help but thank the contagion for its apparent “positive” effect on creatures other than humans.
Conservationists are delighted at the return of the rare pink dolphins to the waters between Hong Kong and Macau. The reason they say is the halting of ferries between the two destinations owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, reported Bangkok Post.
However, scientists remain deeply concerned about their long-term survival in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
The Indo-Pacific Humpback dolphin, as the dolphins are known to bioscientists, is a species of humpback dolphin inhabiting coastal waters of the eastern Indian and western Pacific Oceans. This species is often referred to as the Chinese white dolphin in China (including Macao), Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
The population along the Chinese coast has pink skin and the pink colour originates not from a pigment, but from blood vessels which were overdeveloped for thermoregulation. According to the WWF, there are only an estimated 2,000 pink dolphins left in the Pearl River Delta — the minimum number that conservationists believe are needed to sustain the species.
“We’re seeing much larger group sizes as well as much more socialising, mating behaviour, which we hadn’t really been seeing for the last five years or so,” Dr. Lindsay Porter, a Hong Kong-based marine scientist, was quoted as saying by Bangkok Post.
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The Pearl River Delta, which includes Hong Kong and Macau, apart from Chinese mainland megacities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan, is one of the most industrialised coastal areas on Earth and is home to some 22 million people. The rugged southern coastline of Hong Kong’s outlying Lantau island provides shelter from typhoons and predators for the dolphins.
But it is also where the ferries between Macau and the financial hub travel which is availed by a huge number of tourists. The ferry route is the popular choice for tourists heading to Macau via Hong Kong.
Aside from heavy shipping traffic, the dolphins’ key habitat has been subjected to a host of large-scale developments, including the construction of Hong Kong’s airport on reclaimed land and the world’s longest sea bridge connecting the financial hub to Macau and Zhuhai.
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Noise from vessels disturbs mammals that rely on underwater sound for navigation and communication. The ships also pose the physical threat of striking the creatures. All these factors contributed to a decline in the population of the dolphins by 70–80% in the past 15 years.
But this year their numbers have bounced back, thanks to the pandemic!
Ferries between Hong Kong and Macau have been suspended since February. This unexpected “solitude” appears to have helped the dolphins, according to Porter. Their data suggests that the number of pink dolphins has increased by roughly a third in those waters since March.
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