Chinese White Dolphins in the Anthropocene: Human-animal Relations Among the Islands of the Pearl River Delta

Abstract

The Chinese white dolphin (Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, Sousa chinensis) has become a symbol of China’s Pearl River Delta in the Anthropocene. However, little scholarly attention has been paid to its role in the region’s culture. This paper takes a human-animal relations approach to ask how and why this threatened species of dolphin rose to symbolic importance in a particular delta island geography within its vast range. The paper undertakes an exploratory literature review of historical and more recent texts concerning dolphins in China and more specifically Chinese white dolphins in the Pearl River Delta. These texts range from discussions of dolphin physiology, to religious associations with dolphins, to industrial-economic explorations, to illustrated children’s books, to postage stamps and amusement park exhibits. They combine to show that Anthropocene processes have produced the Chinese white dolphin as symbolic of Hong Kong’s reunification with China and ultimately for the cohesiveness of the Pearl River Delta crossborder region as a whole, even as these spatioeconomic developments have placed the species at risk.