A Chinese white dolphin was found dead this morning, floating in the sea near Cheoc Van beach in Coloane.
Local animal rights group Anima (Macau) was alerted to the presence of the deceased animal by a concerned citizen. Anima president, Albano Martins, speculated that the dolphin may have collided with a maritime vessel in the Pearl River Delta estuary.
“Dolphins have a sense of orientation that can [help them to] avoid accidents even in these murky waters,” Martins told the Times. “We don’t know what happened, but it seems like a boat cut it.”
The Anima president also said that Macau’s Marine and Water Bureau has retrieved the deceased animal and is arranging for the body to be disposed.
Sightings of dead dolphins off the coast of Macau are a relatively rare occurrence, but several have been documented in recent years.
A notable decline in the Chinese white dolphin population in neighboring Hong Kong has prompted that city’s Dolphin Conservation Society to recently call for a new, extensive marine park in the territory to protect the species.
There was an estimated 188 members of the marine mammal species in Hong Kong waters when the city’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department began monitoring the population in 2003.
Fourteen years later, the population has been reduced to just 47 – a quarter of that recorded in 2003 and a historical low for the territory.
More worryingly, the pace of their disappearance seems to be increasing. It took about eight years for the 2003 population to halve, but only another six years for it to halve again.
The dolphin conservation group attributes the decline in the number of dolphins to the region’s recent infrastructure development. Since the 1997 handover, numerous large-scale infrastructure works around Lantau Island have commenced, most notably the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.
In addition, the growing frequency of high-speed ferries and maritime traffic is threatening the traditional territory of the mammals and other marine wildlife, the group said.
Chinese white dolphins are a variety of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, with a territory spanning Southeast Asia and the coast of northern Australia. Although they are often white in color – hence the species’ name –
the population along the Chinese coast are sometimes a striking shade of pink. DB
