To increase public awareness of the plight of endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, a ferryboat operator in Greater Taichung is offering rewards of NT$300 and NT$500 to people who capture the creatures on film.
Horng Shing Tourist Yacht president Wong Tian-bao (翁天保), founder of the Central Taiwan Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin Protection Alliance, said that starting next month, the association would give out rewards to individuals who send in photos of the dolphins, marked with the coordinates, time and location of their sightings of the sea creatures.
The photographers are to be paid differently, depending on how far the sighting is from the shore: NT$300 for sightings within 3 nautical miles (5.6km) and NT$500 for those beyond this range, he said.
The dolphins — also known as “Matsu fish” (媽祖魚) because they often appear along the west coast around the sea goddess Matsu’s (媽祖) birthday — inhabit the waters along Taiwan’s western coast and around Hong Kong, Wong said.
The cetacean primarily feeds on economic fish species native to Taiwan, and the decreasing numbers of these fish in recent years might be linked to the dolphin’s shrinking population, he said.
With a population of a little more than 100, the dolphin is on the UN’s list of endangered species and preservation is urgently needed; otherwise, future generations will not be able to see the marine species, Wong said.
“Many fishermen use gill nets within the 3 nautical mile range, which captures even the small fish and contributes to the depletion of fish stock along the west coast. And when fishermen accidentally capture one of these dolphins, they slaughter it right away to dodge the legal liabilities they would face should the Coast Guard Administration catch them,” he said.
Wong expressed hope that the association would be able to gather more support to safeguard the dolphins and that a database on the species can be established through its reward mechanism to aid research on the species.
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