Copyright: Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch |
Copyright: Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch |
As you can see from the photos, there are bubblegum pink dolphins on this planet. Some live in the Amazon. Some live in China. The latter are known as Chinese white dolphins, (because they can be white or pink), and they are rare. Only about 2000 are thought to inhabit the South China Sea. Those found in Hong Kong reside only in the western waters around Lantau Island where I also live. And yes, I have seen them.
An ad I came across recently for a popular Lantau dolphin boat cruise could have been written by a side show carny, "Be amazed! These dolphins, found between Hong Kong and Macau, live within a few km of one of the world's busiest shopping centers and most densely populated urban areas."
On June 6, 2012, The South China Morning Post reported that Hong Kong's pink dolphin numbers have gone down almost continuously during the past decade. There are now only 78.
Are the dolphins leaving because they don't like shopping? According to the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society (http://www.hkdcs.org/), perhaps indirectly. Lots of shopping means more people who require boat and high speed ferry transport to the stores on the various islands that comprise Hong Kong. This traffic makes so much underwater noise, the dolphins can no longer cope.
The Conservation Society chairman, Dr. Samuel Hung Ka-yiu says, "Dolphins are acoustic creatures that rely on sound to detect their environment, search for food, and communicate." Since dolphin moms and babies maintain contact by communicating through sound, "the babies may wander off and get lost when it's too noisy."
We humans don't hear well underwater. When we submerge our heads, the ocean seems silent because our ears are designed to hear in air and have little sensitivity to the medium of water. Dolphins on the other hand, hear very well underwater. Hearing is their most finely tuned sense.
Stories of dolphins protecting humans from sharks, preventing struggling human swimmers from drowning, and rescuing sailors or ships in trouble, recur often in the folklore of many cultures, including that of the Chinese.
It wasn't just the ancients who thought this. A more modern and documented tale of Pelorus Jack describes a Risso dolphin who, in the early twentieth century, guided ships through a dangerous stretch of the Cook Strait at the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand. As soon as ships arrived in the treacherous water, Jack appeared and guided the vessels through. He departed once the ships had made safe passage.
So what is to become of us humans--we who kill dolphins on a grand scale, including the amazing bubble gum pink ones? The gods don't like it when their messengers are killed.