A new experience at HKDCS

Hi everybody! I am Tiffany, a new intern who joined the HKDCS since the beginning of October.  Few months ago, I completed my science undergraduate program in Waterloo, Canada and was thinking whether I should pursue a Master’s degree. As a biology student, I have explored various topics in this field and found that the research done on marine biology and conservation is something which interests me all along.  I decided to get more research experience through this internship and have a better idea of how my career path will be like.

Time flies and I am starting my fourth week with HKDCS already. I felt great to have learned and experienced so much in such a short time. From understanding how land-based and boat surveys were conducted, I realized that communication between team members is very important to gather accurate research data. I got a taste of being an observer and operator during line-transect surveys, acoustic boat surveys and theodolite tracking. Given that I have little experience in field work research, everything was new to me.  However, things worked out easily as the staff was exceptionally helpful and nice. Thanks everyone!!! In the past few weeks, I have seen how the living environment of the cetaceans is threatened by all the busy marine traffic and construction work happening right now. It is surprising how they can survive in these waters. I hope I can learn more about these amazing marine mammals and how they can be protected.

Right from the start, I was very fortunate to see several groups of Chinese white dolphins on my first day, including a few pairs of mother and calf which I could hardly forget. This was something I have not expected and was very memorable :)  It made me excited whenever I see the dolphins and hopefully I can get to see the finless porpoise as well by the end of my internship. Last week, I saw a well-known dolphin called Ringo which is easy to spot with the scar around his neck. I was told that Ringo might have got his scar when he was caught in a fishnet earlier in his years and outgrew from it later. This evidence is important in showing the impact of human activities had on the dolphins and made me think more deeply in what we can do to reduce these adverse outcomes.

(Can you see Ringo?)

That’s all for now.  Hope there will be more updates soon.

Cheers,

Tiffany

Final spurt

The last two weeks of my internship with the HKDCS are dawning and I look back at some busy weeks.

We finished our surveys at Tai Ho Wan, which is a good thing. They really were an important and time-consuming part of our effort in the last 1.5 months. In the last weeks, we also sighted quite a few dolphins a little further out around the Brother Islands. This area is by no means less busy than closer to shore, thus it is surprising, but at the same time promising, that we still see dolphins there.

I've also spent quite some time on the acoustic boat. We managed to get some very good recordings. I even heard croaker fish! It is shocking, though, how much noise some of these boats and construction vessels produce. Imagine an animal that is so highly reliant on acoustics for orientation having to cope with such an environment! Just again, I find it really amazing that we still see dolphins in the area under these conditions. And it makes me worry about the many dolphins we see in West Lantau, once the bridge construction really starts.

One survey brought me further south to South Lantau.  I again didn't see any of the mysterious porpoises, but it really is such a beautiful area. We even saw a sea eagle and what felt like thousands of little fish jumping out of the water. Nature can be so amazing!

Winter is slowly starting here in HK. While temperatures are still high (and it thus is more like "winter"), we have days with extremely poor visibility due to winds from the continent. I've been told that's the usual weather during winter. Considering it being caused by pollution from the mainland, it's actually really shocking to see the extent.

Stay tuned for what is yet to come.

Anke

Halftime

It’s unbelievable, but half of my internship is over already. Time really does fly. And there still are new things to learn, whether it’s new stations or survey types. Last week we collected some dolphin dive times in Tai O. It’s really a most favorable place for watching dolphins from land and conveniently close to my home away from home, too. I for sure will be back to just sit there and watch some dolphins on a free day.

While we saw many dolphins in Tai O, unfortunately the remaining week was marked with only few and mainly very brief sightings, no matter if it was from the boat or from land. But I’ve been told one of the other teams had a great sighting, so it’s good to know that the dolphins are still around and we were just unlucky. We also finally started our acoustic surveys, which is really exciting!

On a more personal note it also was my birthday last week. My team of that day surprised me with a cake. Isn’t this just awesome!