Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

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.

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.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Endling" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Endling</a>

Its cousin, the American paddlefish, is still around, though it&#x27;s vulnerable.<p>Among other similar reasons (overfishing, pollution), dams are related to its decline: &quot;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]&quot;<p>But it&#x27;s not too late...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;American_paddlefish#Population_declines" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;American_paddlefish#Population...</a>

On some bright news. Thanks to declining American manufacturing (thanks China) The Detroit River has bounced back.<p>Giant &#x27;river monster&#x27; fish found in Detroit River may be over 100 years old<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;07&#x2F;us&#x2F;sturgeon-fish-intl-scli&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnn.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;05&#x2F;07&#x2F;us&#x2F;sturgeon-fish-intl-scli&#x2F;in...</a>

Seeing that this animal depends on electroreception to survive it was probably a monumental mistake to RF tag the last of its kind..<p>&gt;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.

I got downvoted in another thread for extolling the ecological consequences of dams.<p>Dams should not be considered “clean” energy. They’re environmental disasters. Both upstream and downstream.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;6ppXT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;6ppXT</a>

Padlefish and Baiji dolphin river. Both went extinct at the same time by the same dam. 2003 and 2007. Our time.<p>The &quot;Las Vegas Frog&quot; have a stroke of luck, but it is always the same history<p>And the californian vaquita is probably extinct yet.

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?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;River_bifurcation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;River_bifurcation</a>

Popups for email. No images of said fish.

&gt; survived unimaginable changes and upheavals, such as the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs and marine reptiles like plesiosaurs that it swam alongside.<p>It&#x27;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 &quot;survived&quot; the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event would be to say all extant species survived it. Am I misunderstanding this?

Hopefully they have a DNA sample somewhere. What a shame.

I didn&#x27;t see it mentioned, but the whale shark is even larger. One whale shark was found to be 62 feet long. (Yes, I know: &quot;one of the world&#x27;s largest&quot;)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Whale_shark" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Whale_shark</a>

&gt; <i>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.</i><p>How effective are fish ladders? If they’re effective, shouldn’t we focus on building a fish ladder on all existing dams?

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&#x27;t support them.

The unbridled enthusiasm of man again pushes us deeper into this 6th mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Holocene_extinction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Holocene_extinction</a>.<p>I still remember the Baiji <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Baiji" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Baiji</a> or the finless porpoise <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Narrow-ridged_finless_porpoise" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Narrow-ridged_finless_porpoise</a> . Can we realistically ever taper down and live more simple minimalistic lives that strike a better balance with our ecosystem?<p>Moreover does anyone know why the Wikipedia pages do not show the Baiji or Paddlefish animals extinct? Under the EW or EX status?

editorializing the title is addressed in the guidelines<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

&quot;Extinct&quot; means no longer existing, but the news (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;3g.163.com&#x2F;dy&#x2F;article&#x2F;GAVLG6910514TQ42.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;3g.163.com&#x2F;dy&#x2F;article&#x2F;GAVLG6910514TQ42.html</a>) says &quot;The Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute in Yichang, Hubei Province, is the only institution that continuously conducts the breeding and release of Chinese sturgeon. Founded nearly 40 years ago, the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute has made a series of advances in the artificial breeding of Chinese sturgeon. The 2009 breakthrough in fully artificial breeding&quot;

Warning: plays audio when you scroll down.

&gt; <i>Enter your email address to continue reading</i><p>No. Thankfully reader mode can parse it at least.

(2020)<p>were other posts around about it from smithsonian and phys.org at the time when this was news.

What was wrong with the better original title &quot;The Chinese paddlefish, one of world&#x27;s largest fish, has gone extinct&quot;

&gt; Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now extinct<p>What does this mean?

This title is something up with which, I cannot, put

I feel like someone somewhere should be wearing a black armband. Goodbye, giant paddlefish.

Sad

&gt; Furthermore, activities like fishing and dam construction deserve more scrutiny<p>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.<p>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.