The Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA) has added four juvenile Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins to its individual identification catalog after the young dolphins gradually developed distinguishable features.
The OCA on Tuesday announced the results of last year’s monitoring of the species, commonly known as Chinese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis), along Taiwan’s western coast.
During the survey period, researchers completed round-trip routes along coastal waters from Miaoli County to Tainan, accumulating more than 2,500km of effective survey effort and nearly 155 hours of monitoring, the agency said.
Photo courtesy of the Ocean Conservation Administration
There were 17 sightings of white dolphins, with eight instances of cows caring for young calves, it said.
Researchers identified 30 individual dolphins and recorded 25 sightings of calves, four of which gradually developed distinct identifying characteristics, such as visible spots and notches, during continued observation, it said.
They have been formally added to the identification catalog and assigned the codes OCA071 through OCA074, it said.
The successful establishment of identification records for the calves indicates ongoing reproduction within the population and the survival of young dolphins, while also highlighting the importance of long-term monitoring data, it said.
White dolphins primarily inhabit nearshore and estuarine waters along the western coast, ranging from Miaoli to Tainan, it said.
About 90 percent of identified individuals were found to move across waters spanning more than three counties or cities, demonstrating cross-regional movement patterns, it said.
The findings suggested that the dolphins’ habitat use covers nearshore environments across multiple jurisdictions, meaning they may face different environmental pressures in different areas, it said.
This underscored the importance of cross-county conservation cooperation and coordinated management, it added.
Meanwhile, the agency said it placed two sets of passive acoustic monitoring devices in the waters of Yunlin County to collect echolocation signals from dolphins and data on sounds produced by fish.
Acoustic monitoring could supplement visual surveys by providing activity data under different times and environmental conditions, it added.
The findings showed that dolphin echolocation activity was detectable at night and more frequent during high tide, it said.
Researchers believed that it is closely related to foraging behavior and the distribution of fish resources, it added.
Apart from routine sea surveys, reports from fishermen also provide real-time observation data, it said.
The agency said it would continue to strengthen cooperation among government agencies, across regions and with civil groups to advance scientific monitoring and habitat management.
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