We love dolphins!

It is right to protect our animals living on this planet before they become endanger and eventually become extinct. By knowing more about these animals, in this case the indo-pacific dolphins allows me to have a greater vision of how they exist in our planet as well as i could see clearly with my own eyes that majority of human development has cause massive damage to their surrounding environment and also towards their own health.

I hope to see them again and hope that our future generation has the opportunity to see it with their own eyes.

HKDCS@Hong Kong Book Fair 2011

HKDCS and SHKNE had held a booth in the Hong Kong Book Fair 2011 during 20/7 to 26/7. It was an interesting experience to me. It was my first time visiting Hong Kong Book Fair, I acted not only simply a visitor but also an exhibito and I passed my birthday there on the first day of the book fair. I never went to the book fair because I thought that the book fair must be crowded with people and boring. In fact, it really crowded with so many visitors but it's interesting because there are many types of books. I bought several books and I hope I can finishing reading them this summer.

The HK Book Fair provided me another chance to face the public. Different from the DRT Expo, it was not just introducing some conservation issues to the public, but in main focus, selling books to the visitors. (Of course the reason behind selling these books is also to promote environemtnal conservation to the public.) I was not only simply a visitor but I was also a salesperson. It was my first time to be a salesperson so I didn't know how to get start selling books to the visitors. I observed other salespersons like Vincent and Nekky and practiced so that I became more comfortable and initiative to talk to the visitors. The feeling of success when the visitors decided to buy books after I convinced them was so great. I knew my book selling skill was not good enough and I was not initiative enough. But I thought I had made improvement compared to DRT Expo. And I saw the importance of initiative from two top salesperson of our booth, Mr. Lau and Perry. I really need to learn from them.

Although being an exhibitor in the book fair was quite exhausting, I still enjoyed it. And I felt upset when it came to the end of the book fair. I would like to thanks everyone participating in our booth at the book fair for giving me such a great experience.


SHKNE's booth@Hong Kong Book Fair 2011












Top salesperson, Mr. Lau and his audiences.












Visitors were voicing out their concern by leaving their comments on our big banner.












Group Photo: Thank you all! I really enjoy to this week!











There are two weeks left for my intern. The coming week will be an exciting week because we will be full of manpower so that we will be divided into two team work on boat survey and land-based theodolite tracking. And we will have the boat survey in China Zhuhai on the last week. I am looking forward to sharing with you my feeling and experience in the coming two weeks! See you!

New intern at HKDCS

Hi all,

My name is Paul, i am a new intern from July and i wanted to share my little experience in this blog for the past 4 weeks.

I am glad that i had a chance in being part of the team and working as intern for HKDCS. The remarkable experience for the last 4 weeks puts me in a position where i started to involve in observation work, data calculation and organizing event. Alot has been happening throughtout the month of July and personally i learned alot and had experience different position with different duty at different time. Most of the work was new to me for insist it ranges from: a series of long term observation and monitoring work to calculating primary data and process them into a more representable form and more.

I particularly want to mention about Diving Expo. During that time, i had a feeling that i am so tiny in this world. From the moment i standing next to the skeleton of a Baleen whale i was tiny compare to the size of its head. When people ask me regarding this outstanding skeleton of a whale, i felt empty inside me because i could not tell much information about the whale rather keep repeating myself with the information i heard from others. I felt totally lack in details about this creature and i couldn't tell them more. I was limited with my knowledge at that moment and this has encouraged me that I should be able to answer them in full explanation as well as educate them through my understanding in this area of study.

Thank you team for answering my question and explaining it to me.

Half Way of My Intern & Dive. Expo.

Time flies, I am now on the half way of my internship. In the past 6 weeks, I see improvement myself progressively. But I also see my shortcomings.

I am now getting more comfortable on the boat. I got my first discovery of sighting of Chinese White Dolphin. However, I and Nekky made a big mistake when filling the survey effort data sheet. I still didn't do well enough to coordinate smoothly with my teammates (Sometimes in boat survey, I thought myself was acting as an individual, instead of acting as a team player.). And I didn't realize the importance of reading relevant readings, wasting valuable time in office.
Luckily, I am still on the half way, I still get time to improve, to turn my internship an invaluable experience.

Due to the intern and the lovely Chinese White Dolphin, I decided to buy the first DSLR in my life, D90 finally. And this is my favorite Chinese White Dolphin photo taken by myself with D90. The nurture of baby show the greatest love.
By the way, I have to thank Perry for borrowing me his 70-300mm lens so that I could take this photo.

Last Sunday, the Diving Resort & Travel Expo was over. The Expo provided me firsthand experience in promoting conservation issue to the general public. I gave the information about biology of dolphins and their conservation issue directly to the visitors. This really helped me to improve my communication skill and confidence in talking to others. However, I found myself not confident enough to talk with foreign and mainland people. I was not active enough to talk to those visitors. Sadly, I really missed a great chance in practicing my spoken English and Putonghua!

It also gave me a chance to see different responses from the general public on the conservation issue especially for those related to economic development such as 3^rd runway. Some people against it, a little support it and the majority of people seek for a balance between conservation and economic development. The balance between environmental protection and economic development is always a difficult question.

Moreover, it's happy to receive support from the general public. This let's know that the public understand what we are doing now and what's our purpose. No matter just a sentehnce of word, support form public is always an encouragement for those who work hard on environmental protection and conservation.

Thanks to the organization for giving us a big area to promote dolphin conservation.

intern exp ii =]

The third week of internship I have to read data about overview of finless porpoise and humpback dolphin, abundance estimated in HK waters, photo identification work and the survey procedure. Photo identification (photo ID) is one of the methods to monitor dolphins in a detail way and a safety way. Photo ID is to identify the characteristics of the shape dorsal fin and the dots on dorsal part. That can make me rich in knowledge of the field works.

Moreover, the locations of boat observation of Chinese white dolphin are North West Lantau and north east Lantau. I started to participate in being a data recorder and primary observer. I adapt to record the events faster than before and hence I feel more confident to handle the works.




resource: HKDCS    

The fourth week of internship I have to read data about abundance estimated in HK waters and the educational humpback dolphin PowerPoint. The PowerPoint is used for the education talk in school providing the updated information and knowledge to conserve Chinese white dolphins by public. This PowerPoint also inspires me about the presentation of the internship in CIE and the topic is about the concerning of the public.

        Moreover, the boat observation of Chinese white dolphin in West Lantau make me learn a lot. The west lantau is a hot spot of appearance of CWD. On that day, I started to record and be primary observer. But there are few group of the CWDs appeared at the same time. I cannot record the data immediately and accurately as that situation is the first time which I never meet. After that, I also miss the discovery of CWD because I find I cannot look accurately at the sea water when it is over 400m with binoculars. I cannot distinguish between CWD and waves when it just appear 1or 2 seconds. I also find that I am lack of confident to command to stop the boat when I cannot see it clearly. To sum up, I treasure this experience very much as it reveals me I am still not enough and need to work harder.

intern exp =]

The first week of internship is a training week. I have to read many data about dolphins and whales, and annual reports to government. That can make me rich in knowledge of dolphins and hence help me to handle the field works well.

        The land-base field works in Tai O let me observe the behaviors of humpback dolphin clearly and I have learnt finishing the works by GPS and theodolite. The theodolite can accurately detect the position of dolphins and boats.

    

        In the boat observation, I have to adapt the differences from the land to the boat physically, and the long-tern observation with telescope. Also I have to learn how to distinguish the different levels of wave and the format of information recording.

        In the school speech, I can learnt the technique of speech and know more about educational information.

 

The second week of internship is a training week. I started to try entering the researched data about Chinese white and finless porpoise last week. That data can make me know the distribution of dolphin in HK waters. Also the press conference impress me very much that how a NGO to proclaim message to the public and the message from Samuel inspire me how to consider the poin the long-tern observation with telescope t of views of new policy of government, especially the tricky statements and the motivation.

 

        In the boat observation, I started to try do locating which is the long-tern observation with telescope and the recorder of data. For me, I think the difficulty is hold the telescope and search for dolphins for 30mins. The boat is instable which increases the difficulty on focusing and which is very exhausted. The solution is spending longer and longer time to adapt physical problems. And I think it would be solved very soon.

Invaluable Experience - Internship@HKDCS

This is my first entry on the HKDCS Intern's Blog. In just the first two weeks of the whole internship program, i have gained a lot of great experience which I never expected when deciding to apply this program.

In the first day of work, I came to the office early in the morning. After all the full time stuff came back, the doorbell rang again. I knew the person must be the other intern student. A boy or a girl? Can I get along well with him or her? A lot of question came to my mind. He is a boy. A boy who seems I met before. He sat down and introduced himself. His name is Nekky. Then I asked a embarrassing question, “What is your full Chinese name?”. He smiled and spoke out my full name. It’s just amazing! My intern partner is my primary school friend who I lost his contact for over 10 years! The fate leads me to join this internship program and leads me to meet my old friend! A great beginning of my internship!

In the next day, we started our land-based survey training on using Theodolite to track dolphins and boats. I started to experience the harsh working environment my colleagues always facing. I felt I was inside a microwave oven, heat and heat and burn. I really got sunburn! And this was just the second day of my 3-month internship program! I knew I may face even harsher working environment in coming weeks, but I am ready to overcome them!

The most important component of the research work done by HKDCS is the line-transect boat survey. This is a challenge to me because I get seasick easily. With the help of anti-seasick pills and auto-adaptation, I feel much better now when travelling on the boat now. I hope I can throw the pills away few weeks later. After 5 boat-survey trainings involved both off-effort and on-effort, I found that it is very difficult to discover the appearance of dolphins using telescope especially at high beaufort levels. It requires 100% concentration. I knew I missed sighting of CWDs when I was the primary observer in a true on-effort survey. I must put more effort on using the telescope.

Moreover, I also took part in educational talks and press conference. That's my first time to take part in a press conference. That really widens my horizon. Thought the press conference, I understood more about the drastic decrease of the number of CWDs and their worsening living environment likely caused by the increasing trend of high-speed ferry traffic, reduction of fishery resources and underwater noise. Also, it gave me an insight about the topic-in-the-limelight, the proposed 3^rd runway. But it left me a question, “How can we have win-win situation for economic development and conservation of environment?”.

Thanks to this internship program which provides me a great variety of experience. I am now very excited about the coming 3^rd week of internship life with my lovely colleagues and Nekky. I hope I can make continuous improvement of my performance and I am looking forward to experience more!

Last but not least, I really realize how bad my hand writing is! I must try my best to improve it!