Sorry, what did you say? My hearing has become worse these years, can you speak a bit louder?
Want to have an interview with me? Sure, I am NL18, a senior member of the Northeast Lantau community, due to the indented scar that I carry on the front part of my dorsal fin, I got my nickname as the Shallow Lead Notch. I have a son and he is very well-behaved. He has been living with me since 2000 and we parted in 2009. Every dolphin admired us and said I was very fortunate to have such a great son. He has reached the age of 14 and still visits me sometimes. I am old now and my hearing is getting worse, it was with the help of my son and other dolphins that I can keep on living in this tough environment.
Sound means everything to the dolphin world and losing the ability to hear is a very serious threat to us. Someday, if you can swim around in the waters of Northeast Lantau, you will understand how noisy it has become. Different projects have been happening in these waters day and night, especially for the construction of the artificial island located east of airport and the Tuen Mun Chep Lap Kok Link Road. The earsplitting noises from the piling sites, high speed ferries and construction boats really give me a headache. Over the years, these disturbing noises weaken our hearing ability and cover our voices which makes communication more difficult.
We dolphins have a very interesting social structure. Though we don’t accompany each other in specific groups but everyone are linked together with an invisible bond. Each day we chill out with different dolphin friends, have a chat, catch some fishes, get into fights, then after saying goodbye we will find another group of dolphin buddies. In this vast blue sea, we communicate not by phones, emails or Whatsapp but solely with our voices. However, the dolphin community is seriously affected now as our voices are suppressed everyday and preventing us to communicate effectively.
Thus, I want to beg you, can you please bring all those intolerable noises to a halt? We can’t runaway further and if the third runway is constructed and resulting in the vessel traffic diversion of Skypier through the north of Lung Kwu Chau, the placid waters in North Lantau will be gone forever. You might not care about the old and the weak but still please, please, save a hope of silence for the young.
Flaws of the Third Runway EIA report (12)
The reclamation project will affect high speed ferry routes of the Skypier as these ferries will pass through the north of Lung Kwu Chau when heading towards cities in the Pearl River Delta. The diversion of the ferry routes will bring heavy vessel traffic much closer to the boundaries of the Sha Chau and Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park, and causing more disturbances to dolphins in that area. This will diminish the functions of the marine park as a means to protect the dolphins in the first place.
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