[HN Gopher] Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish,...
___________________________________________________________________
Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared
extinct
Author : gadf
Score : 182 points
Date : 2021-05-31 11:10 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.com)
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| > Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now
| extinct
|
| What does this mean?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Largest fish (Paddle) extincted by dam separating spawn.
|
| ......nope still doesn't make sense.
| Arubis wrote:
| We've found an instance where a semicolon would be clarifying:
|
| > Yangtze dam separated Paddlefish, largest (fish), from spawn;
| now extinct.
| cptskippy wrote:
| That still confusing and seems like something only a machine
| would produce.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Or a 19th century novelist.
| cptskippy wrote:
| I could see Joyce doing it, and also I could see myself
| stabbing Joyce with a plastic fork.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Correction: a plastic spork.
| chapium wrote:
| Fwiw, I understood it immediately.
| tommica wrote:
| Please come this way, there is a captcha that we need you
| to solve...
| kingofpandora wrote:
| That's an incorrect use of a semicolon ... and it doesn't fix
| the problem in the sentence.
| [deleted]
| Y_Y wrote:
| The spawn of the paddlefish look a lot like commas.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Fish embryos look often like that
| bombcar wrote:
| After reading the article it parses out as "dam separates the
| largest paddlefish from its spawn, fish is now extinct".
| Chris2048 wrote:
| But it's not "largest paddlefish", it's "paddlefish - the
| largest fish"
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| It seems like a poor HN title for a very interesting article
| (which has a perfectly serviceable actual title btw).
|
| The saddest thing is that there are apparently technical
| solutions to this that could have potentially saved the
| species. The article mentions fish ladders and bypasses for
| dams. I'm not sure if the ladders are suitable for a huge
| fish like this, or whether it has the necessary jumping
| ability, but some sort of fish bypass seems like a good idea.
| Hopefully this can be implemented in the future for other
| similarly endangered species.
| msrenee wrote:
| They could even have been saved by a captive breeding
| program. Their American cousins are the subject of a lot of
| breeding programs. There's a number of state and federal
| hatcheries that capture breeding adults, strip the roe and
| milt, and return the adults to the wild. The fertilized
| eggs hatch into tiny paddle fish and they're raised in
| ponds until they're big enough to be released in the wild.
| The same is done with the pallid sturgeon, whose breeding
| habitat in the US is more or less destroyed due to the
| channelization of rivers for use by boats.
|
| It wasn't inevitable, but now it's impossible to bring them
| back.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| They did mention in the article some captive breeding
| attempts, but not sure if that was a case of 'too little,
| too late'.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Popups for email. No images of said fish.
| rolph wrote:
| i lifted this link to an image:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paddlefish_Polyodon_spath...
|
| from here :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddlefish
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Reader View in Firefox gives image and no regwall modal.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Same with safari mobile.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Downvoting frequently makes no sense.
| rolph wrote:
| editorializing the title is addressed in the guidelines
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Yes, that was bad. Submitted title was "Yangtze dam separates
| Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now extinct". That spawned a
| whole school of complaints and offtopicness in its own right.
| We've changed it now.
|
| Submitters: please don't do that. If you want to say what you
| think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by
| adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a
| level playing field with everyone else's:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
| 4f77616973 wrote:
| Why can't they split the river in multiple parts with a small
| tributary for wildlife that meets up with the rest of the river
| downstream?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_bifurcation
| zwirbl wrote:
| They could have, it just didn't happen that way. And more than
| likely it's to late for that species anyways. It could still
| save others though
| _Microft wrote:
| Do you maybe mean something like a fish ladder?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_ladder
| Zababa wrote:
| Or the cool "Salmon cannon"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z3ZyGlqUkA
| OJFord wrote:
| Am I seeing that right, they have a guy stand there, pick
| fish up, and load them in to a pressurised cannon?
|
| I wad expecting something a bit more sophisticated/under
| the fish's control, even given the name!
| robocat wrote:
| They also have an automated system:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGzdOpCisnQ
| ambicapter wrote:
| Can all fish jump? Feels like it may be something that salmon
| are pretty good at, but a gigantic fish may not.
| _Microft wrote:
| Jumping is not always necessary. You can get an idea of
| possible designs for fish ladders from the photographs in
| the section "Types" in the article.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| When the dam was built, they didn't know they were cutting off
| the fish from it's only spawn point in the world (it was
| discovered later).
|
| Still, there's an argument to be made for building a bypass or
| fish ladder in every single new and existing dam regardless of
| what the current expected impact is.
| salawat wrote:
| I have issues with comprehending how that wasn't factored in
| from the start.
|
| Then I remind myself most of humanity history is
| characterized by a marked tendency toward anthropocentrism,
| and I cease being surprised.
|
| What surprises me now even more was that there were designs
| for fish ladders even as far back as the 19th century.
| xbar wrote:
| Studying fish habits when building dams is an ancient
| practice.
|
| My guess: a political, hasty, rush to success to curry
| favor and clout drove bad decisions regarding a massive
| government project. Is that not the way of public
| bureaucracy, universally?
| blondie9x wrote:
| The unbridled enthusiasm of man again pushes us deeper into this
| 6th mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction.
|
| I still remember the Baiji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji or
| the finless porpoise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-
| ridged_finless_porpoise . Can we realistically ever taper down
| and live more simple minimalistic lives that strike a better
| balance with our ecosystem?
|
| Moreover does anyone know why the Wikipedia pages do not show the
| Baiji or Paddlefish animals extinct? Under the EW or EX status?
| selimthegrim wrote:
| This ain't a mass extinction yet
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| > survived unimaginable changes and upheavals, such as the mass
| extinction that killed the dinosaurs and marine reptiles like
| plesiosaurs that it swam alongside.
|
| It's generally my understanding that extant species have all
| continued evolving and while a creature may have strong
| morphological resemblance to its ancestor it is not the same
| species. Therefore, to say this creature "survived" the
| Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event would be to say all extant
| species survived it. Am I misunderstanding this?
| rolph wrote:
| there is a framing and context that comes from massive
| consumption of biological science.
|
| when you hear statements like this, the thing that survives is
| the overall anatomical structure and adaptations
| indistinguishable from fossil remains except by the fact that
| fossilization has occured
|
| youare asking a legitimate question, and trying to clear up
| your own self recognized misunderstanding, sorry to see your
| comment going gray like that
| rob74 wrote:
| See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil
| rolph wrote:
| >>The minimal superficial changes to living fossils are
| mistakenly declared the absence of evolution, but they are
| examples of stabilizing selection, which is an evolutionary
| process--and perhaps the dominant process of morphological
| evolution.[4]<<
|
| if you want to talk about genetic modifications that is
| sequitorial however the framing of the statement involves
| anatomical structure, thus the confusions that have arisen
| over time.
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| Seeing that this animal depends on electroreception to survive it
| was probably a monumental mistake to RF tag the last of its
| kind..
|
| >In 2003, Wei and colleagues attached a tracking tag to a Chinese
| paddlefish that was accidentally captured near Yibin, in south-
| central China. They released it to see where it might go, but
| within hours lost all signals from the tag. That was the last of
| the species ever seen alive.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Furthermore, activities like fishing and dam construction
| deserve more scrutiny
|
| The Gezhouba Dam generates 2.7 GW of carbon free power. In the
| light of the critical nature of climate change, we need to build
| more dams like it if we can. Even if a few species on the go go
| extinct, compared to the massive devastation that will happen
| from climate change, that is still preferable.
|
| Climate change is an emergency, and we would be better off with
| more massive hydro-electric dams even at the cost of extinctions
| of species that might be native to the river on which it is
| built.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Even if a few species on the go go extinct_
|
| You first.
| amelius wrote:
| Warning: plays audio when you scroll down.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| On some bright news. Thanks to declining American manufacturing
| (thanks China) The Detroit River has bounced back.
|
| Giant 'river monster' fish found in Detroit River may be over 100
| years old
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/us/sturgeon-fish-intl-scli/in...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| From an economic perspective the biggest losers of the dollar
| standard is manufacturing and the biggest winners is wall
| street. Wall Street had secular growth and manufacturing had
| secular decline from the adoption of the petrodollar and the
| dollar becoming the reserve currency of the world. Similar
| changes happened in Europe when the pound became a reserve
| currency (growth of Germany etc in manufacturing) and then the
| issues that surrounded relative decline in the City as a
| financial center till the Big Bang in the 1980s.
|
| Reserve currencies create huge beneficiaries and losers
| (especially in "tradables" like manufacturing).
|
| Different arguments on this subject:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-bring-back-u-s-manufacturing...
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dollar-and-the-future-of-u-...
| alea_iacta_est wrote:
| > Thanks to declining American manufacturing (thanks China)
|
| Spoken like someone who doesn't work in manufacturing...
| OJFord wrote:
| (I'm not American so don't really have a horse to grind or
| axe in this race, but) why would an American working in
| manufacturing want American manufacturing to decline? Or do I
| misunderstand?
| gradschoolfail wrote:
| Interestingly, the paddlefish is a relative of the sturgeon.
| Both are farmed for caviar..
| quercusa wrote:
| If you are ever in Portland (OR), it's worth a trip to the
| Bonneville Dam and Fish Hatchery to see Herman the Sturgeon:
|
| https://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/visitors/bonneville_ha...
| HMH wrote:
| Interestingly there is a term for the last known member of a
| species: Endling [1]. Scrolling through that Wikipedia article
| always gives me an eerie feeling. It looks like the Chinese
| paddlefish is not listed yet though.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endling
| MawKKe wrote:
| Last time similar topic came up (either here or reddit),
| someone posted this recording of a "Kaua`i `o`o" bird [1] in
| which a male, apparently the last of its species, is trying to
| connect with a female. Reeally eerie.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDRY0CmcYNU
| shakezula wrote:
| This shit always just makes me so incredibly, deeply sad.
| It's the loneliest thing I can imagine.
| [deleted]
| dalbasal wrote:
| I feel like someone somewhere should be wearing a black armband.
| Goodbye, giant paddlefish.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| More like goodbye earth.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| We are going to need a lot of black arm bands
| dalbasal wrote:
| we have a lot of arms. I didn't say everyone.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| I got downvoted in another thread for extolling the ecological
| consequences of dams.
|
| Dams should not be considered "clean" energy. They're
| environmental disasters. Both upstream and downstream.
| bioinformatics wrote:
| After reading HN voraciously for the past years, I though Chinese
| ecological protections and records were flawless, and the dam was
| a sign of prosperity, jobs, opportunities and freedom to the
| Chinese people.
|
| What went wrong?
| morsch wrote:
| Its cousin, the American paddlefish, is still around, though it's
| vulnerable.
|
| Among other similar reasons (overfishing, pollution), dams are
| related to its decline: "Series of dams on rivers such as those
| constructed on the Missouri River have impounded large
| populations of American paddlefish, and blocked their upstream
| migration to spawning shoals.[29]"
|
| But it's not too late...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_paddlefish#Population...
| stakkur wrote:
| This title is something up with which, I cannot, put
| gadf wrote:
| Sad
| jjt-yn_t wrote:
| I was so glad the Paddlefish had gone extinct after reading the
| title as "yangtze dam separates" and spent a few seconds fearing
| another fukushima...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| > _This dam, which was constructed without a fish ladder or
| bypass, cut off the paddlefish from their only spawning grounds
| upstream, which had only been discovered in the late 1970s._
|
| How effective are fish ladders? If they're effective, shouldn't
| we focus on building a fish ladder on all existing dams?
| jmclnx wrote:
| Well these fish were very large. I cannot imagine what a fish
| ladder would look like. There is one for salmon where I live
| and it is not that big. They have been trying to bring salmon
| back for over 30 years. Not much luck so far.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Fish ladders are minimally effective. They are typically
| installed to add a rubber stamp to dams and say "look, we
| tried! It's not our fault the ecosystem is getting destroyed".
| Same thing with fish breeding and release programs.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| Citation?
| paulcole wrote:
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/blocked_migration_fish_ladde
| r...
| rhodozelia wrote:
| Thank you. The article notes that other pressures such as
| overfishing also contribute to the decline of fish
| populations, and that fish ladders on the Columbia river
| are successful.
|
| No doubt there are some ineffective fish ladders out
| there, and no doubt dams have a negative impact on fish
| populations. Could better designed fish ladders and
| compensation channels mitigate the effect of the dam? I
| think so.
|
| Fish stocks across all species are collapsing due to
| overfishing.
| williesleg wrote:
| Fucking Chinks. Fix your country before selling your shit to the
| rest of the world. Assholes.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/6ppXT
| okareaman wrote:
| What was wrong with the better original title "The Chinese
| paddlefish, one of world's largest fish, has gone extinct"
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Perhaps because that title completely omits any form of
| attribution, which as the article suggests, is largely because
| of the Gezhouba Dam which completely cut paddlefish off from
| their only spawning grounds.
|
| Why would you want to omit that part?
|
| That said, this title is a poor attempt at communication.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Perhaps because that title completely omits any form of
| attribution
|
| Though even there, it's... not great, as most people will
| probably read Yangtze dam as the Three Gorges Dam.
| [deleted]
| okareaman wrote:
| I thought the guide was to use the original title
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Well now you have a title that's, to me, incomprehensible
| GordonS wrote:
| It's not just you - the new title makes no sense at all to
| me either. It reads as a jumbled collection of random words
| :/
| travisgriggs wrote:
| "The paddlefish has been dammed to extinction"
| philshem wrote:
| You're hired
| Chris2048 wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with: The Chinese
| paddlefish, one of world's largest fish, has gone extinct
| *because of Yangtze dam*
|
| The problem is this part: Paddlefish,
| largest, from spawn, now extinct
| secondcoming wrote:
| Grammar, largest, from original, now incomprehensible
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| HN's hyperbole filter definitely takes out "world's" on the
| first pass, but you can put it back.
|
| Example: I touched off a bit of a "seems bait-y" _pas de
| deux_ /do-si-do with the bot/mods re a BBC headline a while
| back. It's towards the bottom (where it surely belongs) of
| this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26552375
| [deleted]
| mattmaroon wrote:
| 98% of the time someone changes the title of the article to
| which they are linking they make it worse.
| doggodaddo78 wrote:
| Cooks, many, title
| csa wrote:
| My guess is that the title that the submitter originally
| suggested (with dam info that is not in the original title) was
| over the 80-character limit for HN titles, so they shortened it
| to the current existing (and confusing) title.
|
| For reference when it inevitably gets changed, it's currently
| "Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now
| extinct".
|
| Original title is:
|
| The Chinese paddlefish, one of world's largest fish, has gone
| extinct
|
| Subtitle is:
|
| Native to China's Yangtze River, these fish grew 23 feet in
| length, but haven't been spotted since 2003.
| tptacek wrote:
| Nothing; that's what the title should be. The guidelines ask
| you to use the original title, and not try to summarize the
| article yourself in the submission title.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| HN has _guidelines_ , not _rules_ , and there are times when
| they can be bent.
|
| For titles, finding (or manufacturing) one that's clearer
| based on actual article text is a common alternative. I've
| suggested "Chinese paddlefish has gone extinct due to
| overfishing and dams" to the moderators. (Much of that phrase
| occurs within the article.)
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think we disagree. The important point is that it's
| not the job (or the privilege) of the submitter to
| determine for everyone else what the most important angle
| on the story is. Titles are community property. That's
| exactly what went wrong here.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Agreed to that point.
| riffic wrote:
| Has anyone ever considered that maybe the HN guidelines are
| wrong here?
| pvg wrote:
| In great detail, over the better part of a decade, yes. You
| can find some of the rationale here and a few more searches
| will dig up more discussions about it than even an olympic-
| level messageboard-hardened person could possibly bear
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&q
| u...
| notatoad wrote:
| the HN guidelines often lead to some stupid titles, but i
| think this is one of those times that show why the
| guidelines are good. The original headline accurately
| represents the content of the article. the edited version
| is an incomprehensible mess.
| boringg wrote:
| Serious question here - not starting a flamewar. Are there any
| real organizations in China with power that protect the ecosystem
| and animals there? From an outsider it seems like they just build
| whatever they want without any concern for the environment they
| live in which ultimately will do significant damage to their own
| human population after the environment collapses and can't
| support them.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| So you are speaking about MEE:
|
| http://www.mee.gov.cn/
|
| Not sure why but they also have an English page:
|
| http://english.mee.gov.cn/
|
| It is one of the ministries under the State Council.
| Technically all Ministries are on the same Level so they enjoy
| equal power. In reality some ministries have more weights (e.g.
| NDRC apparently have more power than some of the smaller ones)
| and MEE has recently gained much more power since the elevation
| of President Xi. The following paragraph shows its power.
|
| Quote in Chinese: Zu Jian Sheng Tai Huan Jing Bu . Jiang Huan
| Jing Bao Hu Bu De Zhi Ze ,Guo Jia Fa Zhan He Gai Ge Wei Yuan
| Hui De Ying Dui Qi Hou Bian Hua He Jian Pai Zhi Ze ,Guo Tu Zi
| Yuan Bu De Jian Du Fang Zhi Di Xia Shui Wu Ran Zhi Ze ,Shui Li
| Bu De Bian Zhi Shui Gong Neng Qu Hua , Pai Wu Kou She Zhi Guan
| Li , Liu Yu Shui Huan Jing Bao Hu Zhi Ze ,Nong Ye Bu De Jian Du
| Zhi Dao Nong Ye Mian Yuan Wu Ran Zhi Li Zhi Ze ,Guo Jia Hai
| Yang Ju De Hai Yang Huan Jing Bao Hu Zhi Ze ,Guo Wu Yuan Nan
| Shui Bei Diao Gong Cheng Jian She Wei Yuan Hui Ban Gong Shi De
| Nan Shui Bei Diao Gong Cheng Xiang Mu Qu Huan Jing Bao Hu Zhi
| Ze Zheng He ,Zu Jian Sheng Tai Huan Jing Bu ,Zuo Wei Guo Wu
| Yuan Zu Cheng Bu Men . Sheng Tai Huan Jing Bu Dui Wai Bao Liu
| Guo Jia He An Quan Ju Pai Zi . Bu Zai Bao Liu Huan Jing Bao Hu
| Bu .
|
| Explanation: MEE took a lot of power from other ministries and
| departments:
|
| 0 - It originated from the Ministry of Environmental Protection
|
| 1 - The responsibility to tackle with climate change and
| reducing emmision (from NDRC)
|
| 2 - The responsibility to monitor underground water
| contaimnation (from Ministry of Land and Resources)
|
| 3 - A bunch of responsibilities regarding water pollution (from
| Ministry of Water Resources)
|
| 4 - The responsibility to guide argricultural pollution (from
| Ministry of Agriculture)
|
| 5 - The responsibility to protect ocean environment (from the
| State Oceanic Administration)
|
| 6 - The responsibility regarding environmental protection in
| South-to-North Water Diversion (from relevant officials)
| rsynnott wrote:
| Note that this dam was built in 1970, when no-one was worrying
| too much about the long-term consequences of dams.
| boringg wrote:
| Noted. That doesn't change or answer the question though. I
| am curious if there is a real movement for protection in
| China with any real power.
| dragonelite wrote:
| The whole article is talking about China attempts to preserve
| endangered fish species.
|
| It mostly talking about how in the 80 and 90s they didn't do
| those preservation research when building dams.
|
| The article also talks that its not only happening in China
| these old paddlefish species are endangered all over the globe.
| boringg wrote:
| To be fair you haven't answered my question but stated that
| there are nascent efforts to preserve endangered fish after
| the damage is done. I don't doubt there are efforts however I
| refer to any arm of the government with real power or any
| institution that isn't related to the government with real
| power.
|
| Agree species are dying everywhere after all we are in an
| Holocene extinction event. That said it seems to happening at
| a faster pace in places like India and China with unfettered
| development.
| msrenee wrote:
| It happened in the US already in the same way it's
| happening in India and China now. The Carolina Parakeet,
| the Passenger Pigeon, dozens or hundreds of native plants.
| Shoot, the entire ecosystem known as the Tallgrass Prarie
| is limited to a few pockets where it used to cover a large
| section of the Midwest.
| wyattpeak wrote:
| The distinction you're applying seem to be arbitrary. What
| makes Chinese efforts nascent but American efforts (where
| species also continue to go extinct) developed?
|
| Most efforts to preserve animals come after the damage is
| done. That's why we maintain an endangered species list.
|
| I'm not going to argue that China is as committed to, or as
| successful at, the goal as say the US is, but "not as good"
| is very different from claiming they fundamentally lack
| something the West possesses.
| indymike wrote:
| > What makes Chinese efforts nascent but American efforts
| (where species also continue to go extinct) developed?
|
| Perhaps this isn't about nations, but about 1) how sad it
| is for such a unique species to be extinct, 2) a
| cautionary tale.
|
| Also, where I live (Indiana, USA) we have a native
| paddlefish species that was nearly fished to extinction
| by a ring of criminals that were killing them for their
| caviar. I wonder if something like that was happening
| with the Yangtze version? (Article doesn't mention)
| katbyte wrote:
| > Also, where I live (Indiana, USA) we have a native
| paddlefish species that was nearly fished to extinction
|
| how are they doing now? recovering?
| cptskippy wrote:
| It's less about pointing out a failure in China and more
| about understanding.
|
| As someone in the US, I know about the EPA and the DOI. I
| don't however know of such comparable government level
| agencies in China or any other country.
|
| Whenever anyone asks a question about certain countries,
| the responses are hypercritical, adversarial or defensive
| regardless of the questioner's intent.
| boringg wrote:
| So I haven't actually said anything comparing US to
| China. I see you want to answer your own question
| unrelated to mine - which is alright.
|
| I simply asked, and continue to ask without anyone being
| able to answer it: Are there any organizations in China
| that have any real power to do anything to protect the
| ecosystems critical to animal life or is it unfettered
| development >> ecosystem.
| wyattpeak wrote:
| Given that I wasn't responding to your question, but to a
| follow up comment you made, I don't see why you would
| have expected me to be answering your original question.
|
| Nevertheless, the organisation tasked with protecting the
| environment in China is called the Ministry of Ecology
| and Environment. To quote Wikipedia:
|
| > The Center for American Progress has described China's
| environmental policy as similar to that of the United
| States before 1970. That is, the central government
| issues fairly strict regulations, but the actual
| monitoring and enforcement are largely undertaken by
| local governments that have a greater interest in
| economic growth.
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > The article also talks that its not only happening in China
| these old paddlefish species are endangered all over the
| globe.
|
| What remarkable a looking fish, it looks more like a shark
| with a very elongated nose. Well, pat-on the-back progress
| aside of their 'efforts', I feel that this is in-line with
| not just the CCP's outview on the World, but Humanity in
| general.
|
| Biodiversity be damned (no pun intended) if it stands in the
| way of short term gain(s). Personally speaking, I think
| Wildlife and Marine biologists need to collaborate on
| maintaining these species all over the World in captivity, a
| real purpose for a zoo if there ever was one, to avoid this
| problem. I can't stand to see a wolf or a giraffe in a zoo,
| it makes me sad and I haven't been to one since I was forced
| to go when I was kid.
|
| As an adult I could justify going every 6 months if I knew
| these served primarily as a way to conserve endangered
| animals. Pandas being a chief example of it already being
| done.
|
| I have a lot of qualms with zoos in general and places like
| Sea World, I went to university with a well known marine
| biology program and the amount of collusion between Sea World
| and the biology department was rather blatant at times.
|
| The lessons we learned from the past 20 years in Tuna farming
| should serve as a model of what happens when you deplete the
| Oceans so bad you have to resort to man-made hatcheries for a
| highly consumed staple--I fear that this species of fish may
| not have the same recognition and thus a market price for
| it's survival and thus is deemed insignificant.
|
| Despite being a staunch Free Market advoacte, I'm well aware
| of the inadequacies of market based solutions alone to
| prevent, let alone, solve environmental setbacks like these
| and I fear we have run of time or options that ensured
| Governments could solve these either. It will require a
| massive uptick in the need of individuals to do this.
|
| If social media can topple a career with cancel culture over
| minor indiscretions, and make corporations apologize for BS
| things deemed not palatable to 'woke' mob then surely a
| strong drive to make them accountable for conservation should
| be possible, too.
|
| This being China, I think it's low on the list of atrocities
| the CCP has committed, even against it's species and this
| very little will be done to do more than distract from the
| real issue.
| rmah wrote:
| To call the Yangtze dam a "short term gain" is ... short
| sighted. Now, I can't speak to the effectiveness of the
| dam, but its goals and objectives were literally epic in
| scope. But to understand the goals, you have to understand
| the history, and that history stretches so far back that it
| merges with legend...
|
| Legend has it that one of the early great kings of china
| was Da Yu (Yu the Great). But what made him great? Was he
| a great conqueror like Alexander? Was he a descendant of
| the gods? No. Yu was "great" because he built the first
| major floods control projects for the Yangtze river. Pause
| and think about this for bit. How horrible must the floods
| have been for a king to have literally entered legendary
| status for managing them?
|
| The Yangtze river has been the lifeblood of northern China
| for thousands of years. But it has also literally killed
| 100's of millions of people. Historically, the river floods
| quite often, and once in a while floods on a massive, epic,
| scale. The sort of flood that covers _thousands_ of square
| miles under many meters of water. The sort of flood that
| wipes out settlements across vast swaths of land and kill
| millions of people. Then millions die of disease and
| starvation. The mouth of the Yangtze has moved _hundreds_
| of miles during recorded history. And this doesn 't happen
| little by little... it happens catastrophically with huge
| floods that have kill 10s of millions. Think of the
| Mississippi mouth moving from where it is today to
| someplace in south texas or georgia. The Yangtze river is
| that kind of epic (but not in the good way).
|
| The Three Gorges Dam was built with the intention of
| finally, once and for all, controlling the Yangtze. Now, in
| a few centuries, maybe history will show that it was a bad
| idea. Or maybe history will show it was one of the most
| important works of civil construction in human history.
| Hard to say right now.
|
| But what is clear is that it wasn't built with "short term
| gain" in mind. That dam is the definition of long-term
| civil engineering (for good or ill).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The Mississippi mouth would have already moved to Morgan
| City if not for the Old River Control Structure.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Just last summer there was major flooding up and down the
| Yangtze. It used to be that lots of people died from these
| events, now that they have the river under control it's
| fine.
|
| Calling it simply 'development' obscures the very real
| human benefits.
| msrenee wrote:
| There's definitely more than one side to this issue. Do
| be aware that it isn't just this one species affected by
| this dam though. There are likely dozens or more other
| species that suffered the same fate. Some of them may not
| even have been known to science before they disappeared
| forever. Dams are extremely hard on fish populations. The
| real shame here though is that there are solutions
| available to mitigate the interruptions caused by damming
| rivers. It appears none were taken though.
|
| We have the same issue here in the US. I'm less familiar
| with dams, so I'll talk about the channelization of
| rivers to keep them navigable year-round for
| transportation of goods. The Missouri River used to
| meander to a much, much greater extent than it does now.
| It used to move back and forth over the course of
| hundreds of years between the loess deposits in the
| Midwest. This created a number of slow-moving backwaters
| where many species of fish would lay their eggs. The most
| common example of this is the pallid sturgeon.
|
| With the straightening and taming of the river, they lost
| most, if not all of their breeding habitat. Capture of
| individuals that are under 15 years old that are not
| traceable back to a captive breeding project is
| essentially unheard of. Even adults which are not tagged
| and previously used for breeding are few and far between.
|
| If you don't care about fish, how about birds? The Platte
| river was historically described as a mile wide and an
| inch deep. It was marshy, slow-moving, and full of sand
| bars where birds like the Piping Plover made their nests.
| In order to reduce the flood risk and claim some of that
| fertile land for agriculture, the stream was directed
| into a much narrower and straighter path. With more water
| flowing down a narrower channel, sandbars became much
| less common and were at much higher risk of being washed
| over, taking eggs and chicks with them. The interior
| population of the plover was drastically reduced. At the
| same time, the population on the eastern seaboard were
| being displaced from their dunes along the Atlantic
| Ocean. People like the beach, like living there and like
| playing in the sand. That habitat was taken over by homes
| and businesses and what was left semi-natural was used
| for recreation and the birds could no longer safely nest
| there.
|
| Human use and animal use have to be balanced. Relatively
| few species can thrive directly alongside humans, but
| humanity isn't going anywhere any time soon either. It's
| not the fault of the 9-year-old who wants to run through
| the dunes that these animals are disappearing, but we
| still need to keep a certain amount of nature in its
| natural state so that we don't lose even more of our
| native species.
|
| Dams are necessary in some cases to keep homes from
| flooding. However there's got to be a better solution
| that damming a river completely and building in what used
| to be valuable habitat.
| msrenee wrote:
| This is more or less what modern zoos do. They fund the
| conservation efforts using income generated from sales at
| the park. At the one here, the majority of animals aren't
| on display. They're maintained in the back areas for
| breeding, study, and conservation. There's breeding
| populations of native plants and beetles from the region as
| well as threatened species from around the world.
| msrenee wrote:
| "these old paddle fish species"
|
| Unless you're including sturgeon in that group, there is now
| only one surviving species of paddlefish. That one, thanks to
| heavy conservation efforts, is listed as vulnerable, but not
| endangered. It's actually legal to sport fish in many states
| but takes are heavily regulated. The closely related sturgeon
| species are also struggling.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| You know China is not a democracy right? There's only one
| organization in China with any real power and they're the ones
| building the dams.
|
| The environment collapsing so that it can't support people is a
| pretty drastic leap from running certain fish into extinction.
| boringg wrote:
| I am very aware of who runs China. Which is why I asked the
| question - are there any organizations within China that have
| any real power.
|
| My suspicion is that the CCP has no real effort or interest
| and the lack of people able to answer with a: Yes the CCP is
| seriously trying to protect the environment/ecosystem/species
| through the following things likely speaks to the lack of
| interest/initiative.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| There are no organizations in China that oppose the
| government openly. At least not for long. The Chinese
| government has roving vans that execute dissidents and
| harvest their organs right outside their house.
|
| The CCP cares about the environment insofar as it benefits
| China. They probably do not care about a fish going extinct
| the way we do.
| boringg wrote:
| That sounds highly suspect: "The Chinese government has
| roving vans that execute dissidents and harvest their
| organs right outside their house."
| sudosysgen wrote:
| It's technically true. When someone is sentenced to death
| in a remote area without the resources for an execution,
| a mobile execution van may be dispatched.
|
| And some of those have been dissidents.
|
| Organ harvesting for executed victims has happened in the
| past. Officially, the practice has ended but there is no
| way to verify.
|
| China executes a lot of people.
| w7 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van
|
| PRC does not deny they exist, nor denies that organs are
| harvested after. There are pictures of them online, and
| notable cases where it was the officially recorded method
| of execution.
| boringg wrote:
| Well that was a wikipedia link that felt ill to read.
| Assuming accuracy my apologies for the doubt.
| petre wrote:
| They Chinese fishing fleet is also overfishing in
| international waters, so don't expect the CCP to care much
| about driving fish into extinction.
|
| The Soviet fishing fleet also massacred a huge amount of
| whales just to meet dumb quotas imposed in a centrally
| planned economy. There was not much real demand for whale
| meat or oil in the Soviet Union.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Padlefish and Baiji dolphin river. Both went extinct at the same
| time by the same dam. 2003 and 2007. Our time.
|
| The "Las Vegas Frog" have a stroke of luck, but it is always the
| same history
|
| And the californian vaquita is probably extinct yet.
| xbar wrote:
| I had never heard of the California vaquita. Google revealed:
|
| "The tiny vaquita porpoise is the world's most endangered
| marine mammal. Its numbers are decreasing with fewer than 19
| remaining. Vaquitas die from entanglement in illegal gillnets
| which are intended to catch totoaba, in a lucrative illegal
| fishery that serves an illegal trade of swim bladders to
| China."
|
| https://www.mmc.gov/priority-topics/species-of-concern/vaqui...
| xiaolingxiao wrote:
| I recall visiting the Yangtze river by boat tour around 1997.
| This was before the dam was built and the place was beautiful.
| Imagine the grand canyon but it was covered with lush vegetation.
| We visited a center where there were models of the three gorges
| dam would soon to be built. On the tour they said we would be the
| last tourists to see the Yangtze as it stands, after the dam,
| many landmarks/settlements would be flooded, and even back then
| people critiqued how many species of fish would die because they
| can no longer swim up river to spawn.
| morsch wrote:
| FWIW, the dam in question, the Gezhouba Dam, was completed by
| 1988.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Peter Hessler writes about his experience in Sichuan during the
| time the three gorges dam was being built [1]. Many people have
| had to sacrifice a lot for these dams. However, IIRC many
| receive some form of compensation from the government (adequate
| or not).
|
| [1]https://www.amazon.com/River-Town-Years-Yangtze-
| P-S/dp/00608...
| samstave wrote:
| What compensation do the paddlefish get ;-)
| faitswulff wrote:
| Hopefully they have a DNA sample somewhere. What a shame.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| I was just thinking, are there any initiatives in long term DNA
| storage of extinct or endangered species?
|
| Then there might at least be a chance to bring them back one
| day?
| plank_time wrote:
| One DNA sample isn't enough. You need dozens or more to
| repopulate a species. If you just had one or two, you would
| have to rely on inbreeding to repopulate which would create too
| many bad genetic problems from bad genes.
| _Microft wrote:
| Even hundreds or thousand of samples of a species would most
| likely still be an enormous genetic bottleneck. [0]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There are numerous vertebrate species with only a few
| thousand (or fewer) extant members. Many have been greatly
| reduced over the 20th century, some have been on a long
| decline before that. Some have been small / relict /
| outlier populations for much or all of human history.
|
| Whether this means the bottleneck hypothesis is overstated,
| or that we're looking at a tremendous number of
| bottlenecks, isn't clear.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The reproductive strategy of a species also matters.
| Species that produce hundreds or thousands of young (and
| then winnow down to the survivors) are better at quickly
| "breeding out" genetic flaws (if 50% of the young die,
| it's not a big deal), and have an easier time recovering
| from population bottlenecks.
|
| Vs large mammals where raising one genetically-hobbled
| offspring (who then dies, or fails to reproduce) is a
| huge loss to the potential of the species.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| r/K selection theory, for the interested:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
| pvaldes wrote:
| We can't clone a second Yang Tse River.
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