The Yangtze River is rarely dry. What is the living condition of finless porpoises?
How many "smiling angels" are there in the Yangtze River?
September 29
In 2022, the Yangtze finless porpoise scientific research came to an end.
The answer will be given by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Announce to the public in a unified way

The finless porpoise mother and son are playing in the Yichang section. Correspondent Yang Heshe
In 2006, 2012 and 2017, plus the just-concluded 2022 Yangtze finless porpoise scientific research, the finless porpoise tracing every five years has attracted much attention.
This expedition, which has been searching for finless porpoises for more than 10 days in the main stream of the 1,600 km Yangtze River, ruled out the hypothetical result that the international joint investigation team went extinct more than 10 years ago.

From Yichang to Chenglingji
The finless porpoise was found many times in the scientific research.
In September, the river is blue, the sky is blue, and the trees on both sides of the Yangtze River are lush. The reporter followed two scientific research ships, 020 and 025, down the river and went straight from Yichang to Chenglingji, 390 kilometers away.

Yanghe, who lived by Yichang River since childhood, often saw finless porpoises when he was a child. As he got older, he couldn’t see the finless porpoise. He felt it was a pity. In October 2019, after retirement, Yang He happened to see the finless porpoise on the riverside, but he never found it again a few weeks later. Yang He felt very curious and began to look for the finless porpoise with his lens.
"Where did the finless porpoise go?" Yang He began to crouch by the river with a camera every day, eating instant noodles and compressed biscuits at noon every day, and the longest time was to search for finless porpoises continuously for half a year.
In three years, Yang He took hundreds of thousands of photos of finless porpoises. In Yang He’s eyes, the appearance of the finless porpoise is fleeting, and the speed of shooting the finless porpoise should be seized. The cameras are all continuous shooting, and it is normal to take about 500 photos a day and 15,000 photos a month. Finally, dozens of photos of the finless porpoise were selected.

The finless porpoise mother and son are playing in the Yichang section. Correspondent Yang Heshe
Yang He has changed from a photographer to a finless porpoise watcher, and thus has become a "special observer" of the Institute of Aquatic Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. On September 19th, under the guidance of Yang He, the expedition team found a group of finless porpoises in the waters below Gezhouba, and the small finless porpoises were photographed by Yang He on the shore.
"This group of finless porpoises has 3 families, with 8 to 10 heads." Yang He identified the finless porpoises by their birthmarks and scars. In his eyes, each finless porpoise has a different color and temperament. He probably knows them all, and he can even clearly distinguish the identities of two small finless porpoises.
Yang He searched for the finless porpoise in the same way as the expedition team visually observed the finless porpoise. It is a comprehensive process to find finless porpoises and know the number of finless porpoises on the scientific research ship, which mainly adopts visual observation, passive acoustic monitoring and DNA analysis of water samples at the same time, with visual observation as the main one and the other two as the auxiliary ones.

In 1990s, the Yangtze finless porpoise population in the main stream of the Yangtze River was about 2,550, in 2006 it was about 1,800, in 2012 it was about 1,040, and in 2017, the results of ecological scientific investigation showed that the Yangtze finless porpoise population was about 1,012. The data show that the trend of the population decline of Yangtze finless porpoise has been initially curbed.
The 4th Yangtze finless porpoise basin-wide scientific expedition is the first scientific expedition since the Yangtze River was banned for ten years. Compared with the finless porpoise expeditions in 2006, 2012 and 2017, this expedition has unprecedented organizational specifications, participants and water coverage. The whole scientific research was carried out in four sections in the 1600-kilometer section of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and was carried out simultaneously by more than 120 expedition members and more than 20 fishery boats, covering the main stream of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Poyang Lake, Dongting Lake and some tributaries.

2022 Yangtze finless porpoise scientific research ship. Reporter Miao Jian photo
The Yangtze River has been closed to fishing for less than two years.
The growth of finless porpoise has lag effect.
On September 25th, No.020 and No.025 scientific research vessels ran 390km from Yichang to Chenglingji River. Not only finless porpoises were found in Yichang and Chenglingji River, but also many finless porpoises were found along the scientific research, which made many scientific research observers quite excited and felt that the finless porpoises were growing rapidly.

Hao Yujiang, the captain of the expedition team and an associate researcher at the Institute of Aquatic Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who participated in the Yangtze finless porpoise expedition for three times, said: "Many people think that with the ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, the finless porpoise will increase substantially, but it is not so fast." The ban on fishing in the Yangtze River is beneficial to finless porpoises, which feed on fish, and the water pollutants from ships in the Yangtze River trunk line basically achieve "zero emission". However, the Yangtze River has been closed to fishing for less than two years. The finless porpoise is the top creature in the ecosystem and will not grow as fast as fish. The growth of the finless porpoise has a lag effect.
Hao Yujiang told reporters that the reason why it is difficult for finless porpoises to grow rapidly has a lot to do with the long breeding cycle of finless porpoises. The sexual maturity of finless porpoises is generally 5 years old, and it is not easy for newly sexually mature finless porpoises to get pregnant until they are seven or eight years old, and the pregnancy period is 12 months, which is longer than that of human beings. The finless porpoise is a singleton, and the lactation period is generally 6 months. After birth, it lives with its mother for one to two years, and its reproductive cycle and life cycle are relatively long, which is very similar to human beings.

The finless porpoise mother and son are playing in the Yichang section. Correspondent Yang Heshe
Environmental carrying capacity of finless porpoise
Up to four or five thousand heads
"The current purpose of protecting finless porpoises is to hope that they will not be protected in the future, which will take a long process." Wang Kexiong, a researcher at the Institute of Aquatic Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the ten-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River provided an opportunity for the protection of finless porpoises, but the adverse factors such as coastal wetland desertification, river solidification and high-intensity underwater shipping noise still existed.
"What is the IQ of the finless porpoise? At present, we have not done this research, and there is no test standard suitable for the finless porpoise. No one has tested it. Naturally, it is impossible to know whether there is an IQ of a 5-year-old human child." Hao Yujiang said.
Hao Yujiang said that the environmental carrying capacity of finless porpoises depends on the recovery of fish resources in the Yangtze River. The better the recovery, the greater the environmental capacity. On the other hand, there is the influence of shipping. According to historical investigation, in the early 1990s, there should be about 3,600 to 4,000 finless porpoises, or even more. Therefore, the environmental capacity of finless porpoises is no problem when it is four or five thousand, and it can basically get rid of the "extreme danger".

A finless porpoise is fishing to eat. Correspondent Yang Heshe
Tianezhou nature reserve
The finless porpoise has the largest population and export.
The reporter saw in the finless porpoise garden of Tianezhou Yangtze finless porpoise reserve that two finless porpoises were breathing from time to time in a cage with a length and width of 15 meters and a depth of 7 meters.
At present, there are five ex-situ conservation areas of finless porpoise in China, and Tianezhou Conservation Area has the largest population and export. Since 2015, Tianezhou Nature Reserve has exported 24 finless porpoises to Xinluo section of the Yangtze River (the junction of honghu city, chibi city, Jiayu County and Linxiang City, Hunan Province), Hewang Temple in Jianli, Hubei Province, Tongling, Anhui Province and other suitable habitats.

The finless porpoise in Tianezhou Yangtze finless porpoise reserve surfaced. Reporter Miao Jian photo
Three Gorges area
Suitable for the survival of Yangtze finless porpoise
Tao Le, head of the patrol management section of Swan Island Nature Reserve, told the reporter that due to the drought, the water surface of the old Yangtze River in Swan Island is much higher than that of the Yangtze River. They set up a pumping station along the Yangtze River to divert water for supply. Now the average water depth of the old Yangtze River is 4.5 meters, and the deepest part is more than 20 meters, which ensures the life of finless porpoises. At present, there are more than 80 finless porpoises in the old course of Swan Island, and the bearing capacity of finless porpoises is saturated. In the future, it is ready to release some finless porpoises back to the Yangtze River.
The finless porpoise can’t bear it if it doesn’t surface for 3 minutes to breathe. Hao Yujiang envisioned the Three Gorges reservoir area, Gezhouba reservoir area or other large-scale deep-water reservoir areas as a "refuge" for finless porpoises in extreme climate.

Historically, the distribution of finless porpoises has only reached Yichang section, and if it goes up, the water flow is too fast, so finless porpoises are not suitable for living in rapids and can only live in relatively gentle water. In the past, there were no dams, and Yichang was the farthest place that finless porpoises could reach in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Instead, there are Gezhouba and Three Gorges Dam, which have formed a better environment for finless porpoises, especially the Three Gorges reservoir area, which is deep in water and large in water area, and is suitable for the survival of finless porpoises in the Yangtze River.
Reporter Yang Jiafeng
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