Dancing with the whales

The captain of the joint research group Yang Chengteng, who returned to his hometown to start his own business, was the first to discover the Bryde's whale near Weizhou Island In 2016. He immediately informed Chen Mo, an associate researcher of Guangxi Academy of Sciences. Since then, Yang invited many local fishermen into their WeChat group, and kept the scientific research team informed of the traces of the Bryde's whale.

Chen, together with recently joined cetacean conservation biology graduate students Wang Ruilong and Zhang Yaoyao of the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, hopes to learn about Bryde's whale as much as possible through research methods such as individual identification, behavior recording, health assessment and marine environmental monitoring.

Their ultimate goal is to protect the marine ecology with substantial scientific basis. Xu Jian and Wu Lixin, two veteran nature documentary photographers, will take advantage of their beautiful lenses to help more people understand and love the magical cetaceans in the Chinese waters. Xu Zhaoyuan, a student from Harbin Medical University, sacrifices his precious vacation time to volunteer for the scientific expedition team.