Finless porpoise endangered
(MM / 01-07-10) “Pig deljiangzhu”, as it is known in China, is the finless porpoise, a rare cetacean with no teeth, which is more threatened than previously thought.
It lives in the Yangtze River and scientists say that it is a genetically unique species, and they warn that greatest efforts must be made to avoid its extinction, as well as happened with the ‘Baiji’ (another species of dolphin of the Yangtze).
These porpoises, Neophocaena phocaenoides, live in coastal waters in Asia and stay in warm and shallow waters near the coast. For many time, zoologists have registered the differences among them regarding the area where they live.
A new study published in magazine ‘Marine Biology’ has probed that distinguishing each population of finless porpoises is extremely important for their conservation. “The most astonishing study is that finless porpoise in the Yangtze represents a different genetic group from the other marine cetaceans”, says Profesor Guang Yang of the Nanjing Normal University in China.
Yang and the team of Professor Bruford from the Cardiff University analyzed genes of 125 finless porpoises that live in coastal waters in China, in the Yellow Sea, in the South China Sea and the Yangtze River. Results indicate that they should pay special attention to freshwater porpoises, being protected separately and specifically, he says.
“The most recent census of the species, from 2006, indicates that there were 1,000 specimens in the Yangtze River”, says Professor Yang. “It is a figure much lower than initially estimated, which indicates a significant decline in its population over the past two decades”.
Most conservation biologists and cetacean experts firmly believe that the finless porpoise of the Yangtze River is at a high risk of extinction.
This river of China holds the dubious distinction of being the place with the record in extinction of cetaceans. Industrial uncontrolled develop, pollution, over-exploitation and commercial uses of the river are the main factors that have contributed to the disappearance of these species.
