A DEAD pink dolphin was discovered on the shores of Lantau yesterday, bringing the death rate to nearly one a month as the endangered mammals edge closer to extinction.
Police found the badly decomposed, two metre carcass of a male dolphin near Shui Hau on south Lantau.
The pink dolphin's preferred range is near Sha Chau, Chek Lap Kok and the Brothers, but intense construction, dredging and shipping is forcing the dolphins to move away and find a new habitat.
'It is unusual to find them on this side of Lantau,' dolphin researcher Chris Parsons said.
'But we are finding more and more of them near Tai O and from there they are starting to swim to the south side.' Researchers believe one of the reasons the Chinese pink - or, as they are sometimes called, white dolphins - evolved with such bright colouring is that the low salinity estuary waters of western Hong Kong protects them from sharks.
Sharks become very docile and slow-moving in low saline waters - which also explains why most of Hong Kong's shark attacks have occurred in Sai Kung on the eastern side. Without the threat of shark attack, there is no need for the dolphins to have protective camouflage.