Endangered Mammal Closer to Extinction

A zoologist warned that without potent measures to protect the Yangtze finless porpoise its population will fall by over 80 percent in the coming 30 years. Its habitats are confined to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the Dongting and Poyang lakes. Wang Ding, a researcher with the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, reached his conclusion after a field study conducted with his team at Dongting Lake in Hunan Province in late May and early June. The severe draught in the regions earlier this year took a heavy toll on local fishing resources, and in turn made a deep cut in the animal's food supply. Human activity is also increasingly encroaching into its living and breeding grounds.

Observations found that the number of this endangered animal was now 74, 53 less than the number detected in the area last January. And the rate of cubs, 8.43 percent, is 3.03 percent lower than the rate detected for the same period of that year in Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, another habitat of the animal. The population of the Yangtze finless porpoise, the only freshwater mammal in the Yangtze River, is estimated at around 1,000, fewer than the giant panda.