WWF backs Hong Kong teen’s campaign to save rare Chinese white dolphins threatened by speeding vessels and rising development
Schoolgirl Audrey Tam is determined to help save Hong Kong’s Chinese white dolphins. She teamed up with WWF to crowdfund underwater microphones to collect data to bolster the case for limits on vessels that can hit and kill them
Her backpack weighed down with books, Audrey Tam looks like a typical teenager as she makes her way to the end of Pier 10 on Hong Kong’s Central waterfront. But while other students are immersed in studies and extracurricular activities, 16-year-old Tam – who was born in Canada and moved with her family to Hong Kong when she was four – is on a mission to help save the city’s rare Chinese white dolphins.
“When I heard how many white dolphins were left it really shocked me. It’s below 50; it’s tragic,” says Audrey, a Year 10 student at Canadian International School.
According to the latest annual dolphin monitoring report published by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, only 47 Chinese white dolphins remain in waters around Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, a drop of 27 per cent compared to data in 2016. It’s the lowest figure for the creature – also called the pink dolphin – since compilation of population records began in 2003.
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Habitat destruction from coastal reclamation and busy marine traffic are the top two threats affecting their numbers, distribution and behaviour.
The depressing figures come during a particularly bad year so far for Hong Kong’s marine mammals, including the white dolphin that was made a symbol of the city’s handover from Britain to China in 1997.
