Busy weeks

Hi !

The weather is turning cool now which is just perfect for field research! In the past weeks, I had more opportunities to conduct boat surveys, especially for those near South Lantau and Lamma Island. These areas are popular to get sightings of the finless porpoise and fortunately we are starting to see them around. At times, the sea conditions in those areas are pretty rough due to the strong tides and we even got records of Beaufort 5. I think it was the strongest Beaufort I have experienced so far and luckily no one in our survey team got sick. As for the Chinese white dolphins, they were mostly spotted near Sha Chau, Lung Kwu Chau and West Lantau these days. We also got some sightings in South Lantau which are not so common at this time of the month. I wonder if the construction of the HKMZ bridge is a possible reason for this.

Other than doing surveys, I got the chance to visit the office more often. I learned how to process the survey data and was able to help out in a mini project conducted by the HKDCS. Due to the Hong Kong International Airport’s third runway proposal, it is expected that the habitat of the Chinese white dolphins will be greatly disturbed and may result in a drop of dolphin numbers. The project is basically a simplified Social Return on Investment (SROI) assessment of the economic impacts that the decline of dolphin population has on the dolphin watch industry. We decided to collect our data through questionnaires and interviews, so there will be lots to prepare in the coming weeks! I can’t wait to know the results of the project, especially on how Hong Kong citizens and tourists value our Chinese white dolphins. Hopefully, it will be something encouraging!

Please stay tuned for more updates...

Beautiful sunset in Tung Chung

 with the HKMZ bridge's construction site at the horizon  

Tiffany ^_^

Memorable events

Hi, it’s me again J. A lot has been happening lately, so I will briefly update the progress of my internship. From being a newbie to a more capable intern, I have gained a lot more experience with the land and boat surveys. One of my favorite surveys is the land-based research conducted in Fan Lau. It is a great location to see dolphins as they can be found surfacing very near to the shore. On that day, we had two teams working together for the theodolite tracking and dolphin dive times. Since there were more people on work rotation, each of us took turns doing the scans and operating the computer. At other times, I tried to do the boat counts and learned how to fill in the dive time sheets. Though there were fewer sightings than expected, nevertheless, it was fun for me to take part in different roles during the survey and I had a great time learning.

Other than the work in Fan Lau, one thing that excites me is that I am starting to get my own sightings now. It is always enjoyable whenever I see the dolphins, especially when I can recognize a few. Another highlight of the month was that I was able to see the finless porpoise finally!! Thanks to one of our staff members, we got two sightings right away during my boat survey in South Lantau. Unlike the Chinese white dolphins, the finless porpoise are more sensitive and challenging to spot. Having to see them really made my day and hopefully, there will be more to come!

As for last week, we had a farewell dinner for Anke and other beloved staff members who will be leaving us. We had a memorable time working together and it was my pleasure to meet them. Everyone enjoyed themselves at the table and we also celebrated the birthdays of two staff members. Though we were all stuffed by the end of the dinner but still we managed to finish off two birthday cakes. Way to go everyone! It was nice to see how the staff here cared about each other and the passion they have for their work. After all, other than the great learning experience I had in here, what I can truly feel was that interning with HKDCS not only brings you good food… but also friendship =)

That’s all for now! I look forward to what will come next.

                                                           Our survey team in Fan Lau!

Cheers,

Tiffany

The end

All good things come to an end and my internship with the HKDCS is over, already. I can’t even begin to account for all the things I’ve learnt during the two months. First of all of course there I added a new species to my personal list, which is so different from other dolphin species that I’ve already encountered. It not only differs in its appearance (it’s PINK!), but also in its behavior (the sometimes erratic surfacing patterns still gives me some trouble following the animals at times, and then there are the mysterious disappearances after a couple of surfacings). I learnt new boat- and land-based methods, protocols, and a computer program. I got to know many interesting survey areas and places with very different dolphin and human activities. To see the extent of the anthropogenic influences (including all the vessel traffic and construction work) really is remarkable, and yes, disturbing. And of course I met a whole bunch of new people. The team welcomed me heartily and made me feel included right from the start. I know it must have been a little annoying at times to repeat everything in English just because I don’t speak Cantonese ;) I did pick up some words, though, and although my Mandarin didn’t help at all, I’ll certainly consider learning more Cantonese in the future.

While I didn’t see any porpoises, I’m not sad. It was to be expected because they’ll only move further inshore closer to the beginning of winter.

I enjoyed my stay in Hong Kong at lot and although I didn’t see too much of the actual city, yet (which I will explore in the nedt 1.5 weeks), I really loved the “natural Hong Kong”. It is incredible how much nature there is to explore – and to protect! I’m confident the team will to do a great job continuing their efforts to conserve not only the precious dolphins but the whole environment.

Thanks for all the experiences and opportunities. While it’s time for me to go home and sort out my future plans, now, I certainly hope to come back one day!

Cheers and all the best and good luck with all that upcoming projects and obstacles,

Anke

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!

The moon and the rabbit

Hey everyone!

If one thing is for sure then that interning with the HKDCS certainly never gets dull and I am looking back at an interesting and eventful week.

It started off with no dolphin sightings from the Tai Ho Wan land-based station. To make up for the lack of dolphins, we had many sightings during boat surveys later that week, including some very active individuals spy-hopping and breaching and head-lunging all around the boat.

This week was also the week of the Mid-Autumn- or Moon-Festival, an important holiday of the Chinese culture. As the name implies, it’s to celebrate the Moon and everybody had a day off. There also are fairs with light shows, sweets, dancing dragons and lots of people – everybody wearing or carrying some sort of colourful light. And eating mooncakes.

The moon and the rabbit are closely tied together by Chinese legends. Thus it might not seem really surprising that the Moon-Festival was followed by typhoon Usagi (which means “rabbit” in Japanese). It even made it into the news as the biggest and strongest storm on Earth this year. And it does look a bit like a rabbit, doesn’t it? As it was aiming for a direct hit we of course had to cancel all our scheduled surveys. 

                                                                  (Source)

                                                                   (Source)

So I staid put in Tai O for two days and followed the track of the cyclone online. Having never been in a typhoon, as we don’t get such things in Germany, it was actually quite interesting to see the track changing with sometimes funny bends, track predictions, strength changes and so on. Of course there was a big tautness, especially because till the very last no one knew whether Usagi would eventually hit the city of Hong Kong, or not. After following the course of the coastline for a while and thus really aiming for us, it decided to turn north-west-wards a little earlier, taking most of its strength with it.  Though it wasn’t the first typhoon this season, it still was the most powerful and closest in a long time. While I never felt unsafe and it certainly was an interesting experience, I nevertheless do hope that it was the last one for this year.