They called it the “Goddess of the Yangtze”—a creature so rare that it is believed to bring fortune and protection to local fishermen and all those lucky enough to see it. But overfishing and human activity are driving it to the edge of extinction.
“The baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, is a unique and beautiful creature—there is nothing quite like it,” said Samuel Turvey, a British zoologist and conservationist who spent more than two decades in China trying to track the animal down. “It’s around for tens of millions of years and is in its own mammal(哺乳动物) family. There are other river dolphins in the world but this one is very different, so unrelated to anything else,” Turvey said. “Its extinction will be more than just another species tragedy—it will be a huge loss of river diversity in terms of how unique it is and will leave huge holes in the ecosystem.”Experts have expressed concern that other rare native Yangtze animal and plant species are likely to suffer a similar fate to the baiji river dolphin as worsening climate change and extreme weather conditions take their toll on Asia’s longest river.
China has been fighting with its worst heat wave on record and the Yangtze is drying up. The drought has already had a devastating effect on China’s most important river, which provides water, food, transport and hydroelectric power to more than 400 million people. The human impact has been enormous. Factories were shut to preserve electricity and water supplies for tens of thousands of people have been affected.
Less talked about, experts say, is the environmental impact that climate change and associated extreme weather events have had on the hundreds of protected and threatened wildlife and plant species living in and around the river.
“The Yangtze is one of the world’s most ecologically critical rivers for biodiversity and freshwater ecosystems,” said conservation ecologist Hua Fangyuan, an assistant professor from Peking University. “Many of the little known and unknown fish and other aquatic species are most likely facing extinction risks silently and we simply do not know enough.”
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