Two giant freshwater fishes in Yangtze river basin declared extinct

The extinction of the Chinese Paddlefish and wild Yangtze Sturgeon, declared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), unleashed a torrent of comments on China's social media platforms yesterday, urging more environmental protection.

The IUCN's latest list of threatened species, published on its website on Thursday (July 21), showed that 100 percent of the world's remaining 26 sturgeon species are now at risk of extinction, up from 85 percent in 2009.

"The assessments are based on new calculations which show their decline over the past three generations to be steeper than previously thought," the conservation group said.

It added that the reassessment also confirmed the extinction of the Chinese Paddlefish.

Both the Chinese Paddlefish and the Yangtze Sturgeon were common species in the Yangzte river basin which has been plagued by heavy shipping traffic, overfishing, and water pollution.

The topic was one of the most discussed on China's Weibo, a social media platform similar to Twitter, yesterday.

"A biological population that lived for 150 million years was actually made extinct by modern civilisation? I want to ask: where is our civilisation?" one user called Snow Mountain said.

The Chinese Paddlefish was one of the world's biggest freshwater fish species and could grow up to seven metres in length. The IUCN first declared it "critically endangered" in 1996.

The Yangzte Sturgeon, which could grow up to eight metres, was highly sensitive to increased noise on the river. Its meat was considered a delicacy in China and it was also fished as a source of caviar.

The country has a breeding programme for the sturgeons but has not been successful at maintaining them in the wild. China implemented a fishing ban in some parts of the Yangzte river in 2021.

"Everyone, support the ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, and protect the habitats that are still in the Yangtze River," a user called Lychee said.

- Reuters