Hi, it is time for me to surface again. Haha!

     Last week, I was mainly in charge of doing acoustic survey in West Lantau. We did recording of dolphins’ voice for analyzing the impact of construction sites towards dolphins’ living. However, rarely did we successfully record dolphins’ voice because of numerous obstacles and limitations.

     The weather was so unstable throughout the week and it really hindered our work. We needed to keep updated with the weather condition for deciding what to do when the weather was getting bad. We could only stay at the compartment of boat to do observation while raining heavily. Therefore, sighting and data collection might be badly affected by our obstructed vision. Also, according to my experience, I suspend that dolphins do not behave actively when raining. Haha! I might proof it by surveying their behaviors in the future.   

      It is a bit sad that I did not often hear dolphins’ voice last week. I hope that I will have more chances to get in touch with them and excited by their beauty and intelligence.  

Book Fair :)

It was so fun to work for book fair. Though the task was not related to dolphin conservation, it was actually so interesting.

On Tuesday, I was responsible for the preparation work of our booth.  I transported books from office to the venue with a porter who was so nice to me. I even learnt how to give commands for assisting a driver to park the truck. And I gladly did it.  The books we sold varied greatly. Most of them were about natural science, such as insects, butterflies, dolphins. Some were about hiking, climate and urban development.

After a whole day preparation, we finally finished.Wow!

At the beginning, I studied the content of those books and learnt to introduce them to customers. I also observed how the workers from other societies communicated with customers. Some of them are the writers of the books and some are professional in a particular area of natural science. They really made good use of their professional knowledge to attracted customers’ attentions. I was amazed by how they chatted with and educated customers so skilfully.

After observing how they worked, I felt a bit guilty that I was not knowledgeable enough about nature science and my introduction was comparatively boring. This showed a great need that I need to learn more not just about dolphins but also about many different areas.

It was so great to learn from this interesting task which was totally different from my routine. By the way, if you are interested in natural science, please feel free to visit our booth or purchase our books at book store. XD

Long awaited update

Hello again,

            Here is a long over-due update on my internship thus far. July was a crazy month for the HKDCS, with their heavy workload monitoring the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge construction, conducting baseline surveys for the Third Runway Airport Expansion EIA report, and carrying out regular monitoring surveys for the AFCD department of Hong Kong. Yet on top of all that the HKDCS partakes in an annual book fair at the end of July as well, where they sell educational books concerning dolphins as well as other plants and animals local to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Needless to say, with that workload everyone here has been very busy.

            I had family visit during July, so I’ve been off for a while. My first Monday back however, was in fact today. I helped conduct an underwater acoustic survey of the noise environment in the vicinity of the bridge construction works. We are doing this to monitor the noise pollution that comes from the pile-driving construction activities. It was really interesting to hear how the underwater noise environment sounds. We also had some good sightings today as well. It was great to see the dolphins being quite active, breeching and spy-hopping everywhere! Definitely a welcomed sight after some time away from them!

            Although July was a crazy month, more hard work is needed as well in August as there is a new development project that the HKDCS will be involved with. This project involves further land reclamation in an area that is highly important for the Indo-pacific Humpback dolphins. Therefore, we here at the HKDCS will be hard at work trying to protect our most favorite marine species from further human encroachment!

Until my next post,

Danielle

Hi everyone! I am Leslie, the currently newest intern here and I am studying Environmental Conservation Studies in Baptist University CIE. Having joined HKDCS for more than two weeks, I have learnt and experienced a lot.  

In the past two weeks, I have learnt the methodology of different kinds of surveys via reading and my first-hand experiences of conducting surveys. In fact, the books in relation to methodology are somewhat hard for me, a beginner, to comprehend. After several times of doing research, I have sparked some questions in my mind and I am eager to find out the answers on my own through reading. This is why Samuel and Vincent encourage me a lot to read. By reading, I can build up a boarder sense and a better understanding of the biology of dolphins.

   

However, what comes as the most important thing that I have learnt is not about technical skills and knowledge. It is “learning how to learn”, which does not only benefit my internship programme, but also my academy and many different areas in my future. Being an intern, I shadow the survey team very often. Being observant and sensitive is very important. Also, asking questions is the key to learning. As here are many experienced and professional researchers who are welcome to teach me and I am sure that I can learn a lot from them.

That’s all for now. Many interesting things are to be explored and I will share them with you soon. Thanks!