Has anyone seen my child?….where is my child?….She can’t be dead! No! NO WAY! She was just with me the other day! Why would she be dead? Tell me why would she die?….
Humans. Why don’t you see? Your greed is ruining our lives. Do you not understand? You are killing us.
My name is Ropey or CH34 according to the scientists. I got my name from a very thick rope which was trapped in front of my dorsal fin. It hung onto me for many many years and also collected other rubbish along the way. This severely affected my ability to swim and keep up with the other dolphins. It was only after a whole decade did the rope finally wear out and break. However, I couldn’t get rid of it soon enough before it left me with a huge scar and a broken dorsal fin.
I had my first kid in 2007 but only to lose her too soon. I often blame my lack of experience and ability to protect her from the impacts of humans. When my second kid came along in 2011, I was very careful to keep a close eye on him. I became more hopeful day after day as he started his new life. Then it happened. Again. He just suddenly stopped moving and started to sink. I was not letting this happen again. I kept pushing him up and hope that he would take another breath. For seven days straight I did not let him sink. It was only after I exhausted my body and my baby’s body started to decomposed in front of my eyes did I finally accept that I had lost him too. If only the pain of losing two kids was like the rope that was caught on my back. That ended. This wont. It never will.
To my surprise, I was not the only mother who had lost their kids. Other mothers shared their stories with me but none of us knew why our kids died. We sought out the advice of our elders who explained to us that the fish we now eat are poisoned. The whole sea is being poisoned by the humans. Most adults are strong enough to survive with the poison in our system but our babies are not. Us mothers pass on the poison to them through thee milk we feed them. Their undeveloped immune system is hardly a match to the deadly poison. I was poisoning my babies and there was nothing I could do. We pray for every new baby that is brought into our community. We hope that he or she will be strong enough to survive the poison we unwillingly feed them.
The reason dolphin numbers in the waters north of Lantau are declining so fast is undoubtedly linked to the humans. All their reclamation projects are leaving us with very little living space. It’s difficult to find another dolphin to start a family. Then if we do, the fish we are eating are also decreasing in number and the ones left are all poisoned. To safely raise a baby with good health is next to impossible. Now, even our last thread of hope of survival seems it will break. The airport is trying to reclaim more land for a third runway. We dolphins really can’t fight back much longer. We are tired, scarred and sick. Can we count on you to help us? Can you hear our cries? Can you save our lives?
The lives of our children…my children…where are my children? Has anyone seen my children?
Flaws of Third Runway EIA Report (4)
The airport’s third runway is proposed to begin construction in 2016. This is exactly when the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge construction is proposed to end. The bridge construction is already bringing detrimental impacts to the Chinese white dolphins. Originally, the government had promised to allow marine life to recover and are going to establish the waters surround The Brothers Island as a marine park. This would have been a great thing especially for the Chinese white dolphins. If the third runway is approved, there will be no recovery time for Hong Kong’s marine life and the marine park will become obsolete. The Chinese white dolphins may once and for all disappear from North Lantau waters.
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