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Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
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Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#52> Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now extinct What does this mean?
We’ve found an instance where a semicolon would be clarifying: > Yangtze dam separated Paddlefish, largest (fish), from spawn; now extinct.
That still confusing and seems like something only a machine would produce.
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#53> 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?
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#54Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 happeni…
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 fr…
> 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)
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 happeni…
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 fr…
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.
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#57> 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 ext…
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
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#58Hopefully they have a DNA sample somewhere. What a shame.
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.
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 stan…
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.
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.
Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct
#60> 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?
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.
Citation?