Drought threatens rare dolphin breed
Source: Xinhua |
May 26, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE survival of finless porpoises, a highly-endangered freshwater dolphin in the Yangtze River, is under threat from lingering drought as the water level keeps dropping, experts warned yesterday.
The drought in central China, lasting for about 200 days, has lowered the water level to 27.38 meters in the Swan Island National Nature Reserve in Shishou City, Hubei Province, said Wang Ding, a dolphin expert at the Hydrobiology Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"The level is 3 meters lower than last year, the lowest level over the past decades. Finless porpoises cannot survive if the level continues to drop," Wang said.
The river section for some 30 dolphins to live has been reduced to ten kilometers from 21 kilometers on normal days, Wang said.
"If the activity area is reduced, they might be stranded on the banks and will die if they cannot swim back," he said.
Finless porpoise, one of the six porpoise species and a protected mammal in China, is known locally as jiang zhu, or river pig. The gray, smoothly shaped dolphin only lives in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, as well as in Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake.
The dolphin population is only 1,000, even fewer than that of the giant panda, and is decreasing at a rate of 6.4 percent annually, Wang said.
Five finless porpoises were found in the Swan Island National Nature Reserve in the 1990s, and now their population exceeds 30.
Extreme weather and human activities are the main threats to the species, Wang said.
"Some farmers pump water from the reserve to relieve the drought these days," he said. The local government was alerted and has since banned the pumping.
Wang added that the situation of finless porpoises in Poyang Lake was not good, either, as the drought had shrunk the area of the lake to one-tenth its usual size, which brought unprecedented threats to the species.
"The river should be at least 3 meters deep for finless porpoises to swim. But once the protected areas suffer low water level, they have to move to the main course of the river where ship propellers are a top killer," he revealed.
The drought in central China, lasting for about 200 days, has lowered the water level to 27.38 meters in the Swan Island National Nature Reserve in Shishou City, Hubei Province, said Wang Ding, a dolphin expert at the Hydrobiology Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
"The level is 3 meters lower than last year, the lowest level over the past decades. Finless porpoises cannot survive if the level continues to drop," Wang said.
The river section for some 30 dolphins to live has been reduced to ten kilometers from 21 kilometers on normal days, Wang said.
"If the activity area is reduced, they might be stranded on the banks and will die if they cannot swim back," he said.
Finless porpoise, one of the six porpoise species and a protected mammal in China, is known locally as jiang zhu, or river pig. The gray, smoothly shaped dolphin only lives in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, as well as in Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake.
The dolphin population is only 1,000, even fewer than that of the giant panda, and is decreasing at a rate of 6.4 percent annually, Wang said.
Five finless porpoises were found in the Swan Island National Nature Reserve in the 1990s, and now their population exceeds 30.
Extreme weather and human activities are the main threats to the species, Wang said.
"Some farmers pump water from the reserve to relieve the drought these days," he said. The local government was alerted and has since banned the pumping.
Wang added that the situation of finless porpoises in Poyang Lake was not good, either, as the drought had shrunk the area of the lake to one-tenth its usual size, which brought unprecedented threats to the species.
"The river should be at least 3 meters deep for finless porpoises to swim. But once the protected areas suffer low water level, they have to move to the main course of the river where ship propellers are a top killer," he revealed.
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