Yangtze River Porpoise: A Barometer of the Health of Water Ecosystems

As one of the rivers with the richest aquatic biodiversity in the world, the Yangtze River nurtures a wide variety of fish resources. The increase in biological species, especially the increase in flagship and clean native species, to a certain extent, comprehensively reflects that the health of the Yangtze River's water ecosystem is constantly improving. The Yangtze River dolphin is the flagship species of the Yangtze River's water ecosystem. Its body is very sensitive and has relatively high requirements for its habitat and activity space. It is called the "barometer" of the Yangtze River's health and the "weather vane" reflecting the changes in the Yangtze River's ecological environment.

Yangtze River dolphins play in the waves in Yichang

The Yangtze finless porpoise has lived on Earth for 25 million years and was once widely distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the connected Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake. However, due to the impact of shipping and overfishing, the rare and endemic species in the Yangtze River waters have declined, and the living environment of the Yangtze finless porpoise has turned on the "red light".

In order to strengthen the protection of Yangtze finless porpoises, scientists have gradually explored three major protection strategies since the 1980s: in situ protection, ex situ protection, and artificial breeding. Among them, in situ protection focuses on taking measures to create a good living space for the Yangtze finless porpoise to reproduce in the wild; artificial breeding mainly provides theoretical and technical support for the protection of Yangtze finless porpoises through scientific research; ex situ protection is to relocate Yangtze finless porpoises to waters with less human activities and similar ecological environment to the Yangtze River, establish ex situ protection areas, and help the Yangtze finless porpoises achieve population expansion. The Hubei Yangtze Tian'ezhou Baiji National Nature Reserve is one of them. It is the first ex situ protection area for Yangtze finless porpoises in my country. The reserve has introduced intelligent monitoring equipment and drones, installed underwater cameras and other intelligent equipment in key areas, and established a patrol monitoring network. At present, the Hubei Yangtze Tian'ezhou Baiji National Nature Reserve has bred and exported more than 100 ex situ protected finless porpoises.

According to the 2022 Yangtze finless porpoise scientific expedition to the entire river basin organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the current population of Yangtze finless porpoises is 1,249, which is a historic turning point in stopping the decline and recovering compared with 1,012 in 2017.

The improvement in the survival of Yangtze River dolphins reflects the effectiveness of Yangtze River protection. In recent years, provinces and cities along the river and relevant departments have always adhered to problem-oriented, systematic measures, and both symptomatic and root cause treatment, and have coordinated the promotion of ecological environmental protection and restoration and governance, and accelerated the filling of shortcomings in the governance of urban sewage and garbage, chemical pollution, agricultural non-point source pollution, and ship pollution. Monitoring data show that in 2022, the proportion of good water quality in the national controlled sections of the Yangtze River Economic Belt was 94.5%, an increase of 27.5 percentage points from 2015, and the ecological function recovery of the Yangtze River waters has gradually emerged.

Review expert: Tu Qiang, deputy editor of Ocean Publishing House

China Association for Science and Technology Department of Science Popularization

Xinhuanet

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