Retired fisherman now protects finless porpoises on Yangtze
Print Edition
Fisherman Shu Yin鈥檃n remembers he was often woken up by the sounds of finless porpoises at night when he was young, but the animal, peculiar to China鈥檚 Yangtze River, is hardly seen now.
Finless porpoises are a freshwater mammal in the Yangtze River. Around 1,000 finless porpoises are believed to live in the Yangtze and two lakes linked to the busy waterway.
In 1991, there were around 2,700 porpoises. By 2006, the number had dropped to 1,800 and the population has since declined further. Without effective protection, the porpoise may be extinct within 10 years.
Shu, who lives where the Yangtze meets Poyang Lake, has joined with another 10, mostly retired, fishermen to form a squad to protect the species.
鈥淲hen I was young, I once met a porpoise the size of a long wooden boat. When I slept on the boat at night, I was often woken up by noise the animals made. It is sad that there are so few of them now,鈥 Shu said.
Along the banks of Yangtze, a local saying goes: 鈥渨hen the river pigs (porpoises) jump, the tide will be high.鈥 The appearance of porpoises on the surface often meant the air pressure was low and storm was coming.
鈥淔or so many years, I was a fish saboteur, and now I have to pay back,鈥 said squad leader Zhang Chuanguo, 65.
鈥淲e once used large trawls and sharp hooks. I saw dead porpoises a couple of times. They died from wounds by fish jigs,鈥 said Zhang, who volunteered to join the squad last year.
Along the Yangtze, there are 40 wardens tasked specifically with protecting porpoises and the number is set to reach 100 in July. They use an app called 鈥淧orpoise Wardens.鈥 They take pictures of any animals they see, upload the pictures, record injuries and report any activities that may threaten the environment such as illegal dredging, fishing and discharge of sewerage.
Each squad completes five patrols weekly and cover 40 kilometers of river daily.
On March 14, Zhou Junqi, 63, found a dying porpoise in Poyang Lake.
鈥淚t was motionless when we discovered it. We hauled it up to the boat and found a baby porpoise under the mother鈥檚 belly. There was nothing that I could do, and it was something that I can never forget,鈥 he said.
Patrollers confiscate any illegal fishing equipment they find.
鈥淪ome fishermen know me and do not understand what I do now. They say: you were once a fisherman too, and now you take away some else鈥檚 tools?鈥 said Shu.
鈥淚 tell them about law and new regulations and the importance of not making money at the expense of mother nature,鈥 he said.
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