Published: 2:53pm, 27 Oct 2024Updated: 3:00pm, 27 Oct 2024
More protective measures should be introduced at the site of Hong Kong’s first dinosaur fossil find, such as a visitors quota, experts have said amid an uptick in interest among social media users to visit Port Island.
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The city’s development minister earlier estimated the island would be closed off for further geological investigation for at least a month, citing the coming monsoon season and hopes from experts that more fossils could be found.
The site is also part of one of two geological regions in Sai Kung that were designated as a geopark by the Unesco, the UN’s heritage body, in 2011.
The Sai Kung Volcanic Rock and Northeast New Territories Sedimentary Rock regions were later recognised as a Unesco Global Geopark in 2015.
Port Island is one of several protected zones in the geopark where are “not encouraged” to land, but are instead advised to appreciate it remotely via boat tours.
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“We believe it will take at least one month, or even a longer time, to gather samples on Port Island,” development minister Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said on Saturday.