The Bryde's whale, a large baleen whale, is listed in the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species and China's national key protected wild animal list as a level-1 protected species. In 2016, Chen Mo, an assistant researcher of the Guangxi Academy of Sciences, discovered the whales in the waters off Weizhou Island in Beihai.

It was confirmed to be the only stable large whale population along the Chinese coast, with the latest research estimating their numbers at around 70 individuals.

In the Gulf of Thailand, scientists from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources in Thailand have recorded nearly 156 Bryde's whales. Their research and conservation efforts have been ongoing for 15 years, leading to the development of a thriving whale-watching tourism industry.

Ding and his team members tracked and filmed Bryde's whales in the Beibu Gulf and the Gulf of Thailand, documenting the cross-border cooperation between Chinese and Thai scientists in research, conservation, and sustainable whale-watching tourism.