For Chinese Paddlefish, a Long Goodbye
- From: chatnoir <wolfbat359a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 05:33:53 -0700 (PDT)
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/another-long-goodbye-chinese-paddlefish/?ref=science
headline:
For Chinese Paddlefish, a Long Goodbye
While some wildlife seems to do better around civilization than in
the wild, in earth’s most crowded places, like the corridor along the
Yangtze River, there is a different outcome. First, scientists
recorded the vanishing and apparent extinction of the baiji, a
dolphin species unique to that river. Now another denizen, the Chinese
paddlefish, Psephurus gladius — which measures up to 20 feet long and
decades ago was commonly seen leaping above the waters — appears to be
on the verge of extinction, if not already gone forever. A three-year
survey of the fish’s normal haunts in the upper stretches of the river
by Chinese biologists has turned up nothing. “It is strongly suggested
that P. gladius is on the verge of extinction,” the researchers wrote,
“and further rigid measures are proposed to save the very few
remaining specimens.”
On Tuesday, I contacted Steven Mims at Kentucky State University, an
expert on the American paddlefish who spent time in China with
researchers studying the species in the early 1990s. Dr. Mims said he
was confident the fish still existed in the river but lamented that
such efforts were coming so late in the game — a story I have heard
from many biologists studying the last hangers-on of vanishing
species.
To put it another way, we have an Endangered Species Act intended to
save species on the brink, but not a Thriving Ecosystems Act that
tries to monitor and sustain diverse communities of species before bad
things happen. You can almost compare the situation to a flawed health
care system. If preventive care is not the focus, the lack of
attention to people when they are well can lead to a crowd of patients
who, later in life, overburden a system with clogged arteries,
diabetes and other debilitating, costly ailments.
When people wait until a species is nearly gone, achingly exasperating
situations can develop, Dr. Mims said, recalling that in 2004 Chinese
scientists sent him photographs of two living paddlefish they were
trying to maintain in a pond. (He is a specialist in aquaculture
methods.) He learned that those harboring the fish were throwing rice
cakes into the water, which depleted the oxygen. (The rice cakes were
useless to the fish-eating species.) ... (cont)
.
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