The IWC was established in 1946 to regulate whaling and preserve stocks as a resource, but since a global moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect in 1986, the organisation has been able to focus more on protecting species and advising governments on how to protect them. “The ‘resource’ now, of course, is nature, their intrinsic value, whale-watching—that type of thing,” Porter says. The IWC has a priority list of species that need immediate conservation action, and works to provide targeted responses to help the countries in whose waters the creatures live. There are hopeful, heartwarming results: the Yangtze River finless porpoise was on the list, but the mainland Chinese government has taken massive steps to protect them, based on the organisation’s advice, and the species is no longer at such great risk.

But these success stories are not assured: the Irrawaddy dolphins of South and Southeast Asia, Porter says, suffered particularly during the pandemic because more people were fishing and competing directly with the mammals; and of particular concern to the scientist are Hong Kong’s “second species”. “I’m quite concerned about finless porpoises,” Porter says, adding that scientists find far more of this species dead than pink dolphins. “Nobody knows about them: they’ve got flat faces, they’re dark, and when they surface, they look like a floating tyre. So you’ve got the little floating tyres, and then there are the big, pink, smiley dolphins. The pink dolphins get all the press.”

It doesn’t help with any potential publicity drive that finless porpoises are notoriously shy and wont to disappear when a boat full of scientists approaches, and so it is difficult to photograph them. Luckily, Porter and her team have been working with a drone company to capture images from a distance which, combined with the vocalisations the scientists have been able to capture, might be enough to take to an NGO and set up a campaign to raise more interest in the elusive mammals.

Porter hopes that people everywhere will work harder to protect the seas, and not treat them as a rubbish dump; in Hong Kong particularly, she says, there are plenty of facilities and systems set up to recycle or properly dispose of waste. Besides, if humans do not contribute to the continued existence of marine mammals, there will be a catastrophic impact on the planet and its inhabitants. “If we cannot keep our marine environment healthy, then we as a human race are lost: every second breath we take comes from oxygen generated from our oceans,” she says. “And as we are learning more about the role that marine mammals play, and nutrient cycling, and how that supports fish populations—which more than two thirds of the world rely on for their primary protein—[we are seeing that] marine mammals are important because they help us maintain the health of our marine system. And of course, they are just intrinsically wonderful.”

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