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Satellite Workshop: Marine wildlife ecology and conservation |
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Chinese white dolphin (Sousa chinensis) in China: Status and Future
Sunday 8th @ 1100-1120
Room 5
Wenhua Liu* , Marine Biology Institute, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515063, P.R. China
Yinglin Wu, Marine Biology Institute, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515063, P.R. China
Derun Lin, Marine Biology Institute, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515063, P.R. China
Jingzhen Wang, Marine Biology Institute, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515063, P.R. China
Miao Bao, Marine Biology Institute, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong 515063, P.R. China
Presenter Email: whliu@stu.edu.cn
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| The humpback dolphins in China are known as Chinese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis, CWD), historically distributed from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the Vietnam border north. The overall stock of Chinese white dolphin (CWD) (Sousa chinesis) in Chinese waters is now roughly known: Pearl River Estuary (PRE) (กซ2500 individuals), Xiamen (XM) (<100), Zhanjiang (ZJ) (กซ1485), Jiangmen (JM) (>200) and Taiwan (TW) (<300). Now it is well known that this species occurs in coastal waters. Actually, there are many rivers flowing into the seas in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi provinces, and stranding or sightings were ever recorded in many un-investigated areas (e.g. Yangtze River Estuary, Oujiang River Estuary, Dongshanxi River estuary, Minjiang River estuary, Quanzhou Bay, Moyangjiang River estuary). Our data by combining local ecological knowledge (LEK) and field survey methods indicated that the chance for dolphin exchange in different regions is very low, although the preliminary genetic data indicated that there may exist genetic exchange between populations of XM and PRE.
Just as mentioned above, CWD mainly inhabit in estuarine areas where there are the heaviest human activities in China. Therefore, this species is being adversely affected by various human generated activities, and the precise significance of virtually all of these is poorly known and this situation is made even worse because we also know little of the distributions and habitat needs of these animals. This review covers the established and emerging threats affecting this species, including chemical pollutants (trace elements and persistent organic pollutants), noise pollution, habitat degradation, prey depletion, vessels and climate change. Ecological risk of Chinese white dolphins in Chinese waters will be presented based on analyzing available scientific data from diverse sources. In the future, more efforts should be posed to look for the spatial and temporal changes in different areas, and thus the driving forces for these changes. |
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