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

nationalgeographic.com

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

#181

Post by gadf »

Chris2048 wrote: post #26
Enginerrrd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I'm sorry, this shit cracks me up so much. I'm glad that everyone got so much out of the title!

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

#182

Post by gadf »

bombcar wrote: post #16
jacksonkmarley wrote: post #10

> Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now extinct What does this mean?

After reading the article it parses out as “dam separates the largest paddlefish from its spawn, fish is now extinct”.

Blame the title limit. Thanks!

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

windthrown wrote: post #171
beauzero wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fishing is highly...and I do mean highly regulated in Montana (spawning grounds). http://fieldguide.mt.gov/speciesDetail.aspx?elcode=AFCAB0101... There are wildlife biologists that harvest the eggs and process the meat for you. You must apply for tags and the season can be shutdown if a limit is reached before the end of the season. I fished it once and was glad I didn't catch anything. My heart wasn't in it after I…

This is going to come off much snarkier than I mean it, but were rice and beans not available in Montana at that time? I am a big fan of seafood but there is a lot of "quality protein" middle ground between meat and mac and cheese.

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by candiodari »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #167
xiaolingxiao wrote: post #41

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 f…

Fun fact, the Three Gorges Dam generates about 112 TWh per year of electricity, which is almost exactly the power consumption of Bitcoin.

Which doesn't matter at all: it's not like the dam wouldn't have been built if there was no Bitcoin, so the implied causal connection is extremely tenuous.

Especially since the Three Gorges Dam predates Bitcoin by 2 or 3 decades.

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

#186

Post by RugnirViking »

candiodari wrote: post #185
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, the Three Gorges Dam generates about 112 TWh per year of electricity, which is almost exactly the power consumption of Bitcoin.

Which doesn't matter at all: it's not like the dam wouldn't have been built if there was no Bitcoin, so the implied causal connection is extremely tenuous. Especially since the Three Gorges Dam predates Bitcoin by 2 or 3 decades.

bizzare comment. I don't believe for a second the op decided to imply a connection, nor that any single reader would take that away from reading the comment. They were simply highlighting the relative magnitudes of power using something that us techies are likely to be familliar with, and something that is in the public conciousness recently (the power consumption of bitcoin)

Overall, I learned that the dam has an impressively high power production, nothing more.

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

#187

Post by RugnirViking »

thehappypm wrote: post #143
forrestthewoods wrote: post #136

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.

Being anti-dam is environmental NIMBYism. A dam focuses externalities on the same communities that benefit from the dam (jobs and revenue). Fossil fuels benefit the producers but everyone suffers the externalities.

> A dam focuses externalities on the same communities that benefit from the dam (jobs and revenue)

Baffling. I don't believe for a second that the amount of jobs a dam brings is in any way close to worth the cost of having to move an entire town or village, and the revenue is just laughable - that goes to random pension funds and banks thousands of kms away if its a public company or to some investor's pockets if its not, neither of which benefit locals

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

#188

Post by kaba0 »

dennis_moore wrote: post #154
HMH wrote: post #102

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

It seems like a tremendously difficult task to declare that a particular individual is an endling. Do you know how a zoologist would infer such a thing?

Only a guess, but if there is no sighting of it in the wild for a very long time (eg. from the article it was 10 years, but I guess it depends on species, how long does it live, how many offsprings it produces etc) and there is one living in captivity it is not that hard to declare.

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

#189

Post by kaba0 »

gradschoolfail wrote: post #135

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.

Absolutely not knowledgeable on the topic but a quick search says that RF tags are used on sharks — my naive guess is that biologists know better than to use tags that can heart the animal.

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

#190

Post by thehappypm »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #148
thehappypm wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being anti-dam is environmental NIMBYism. A dam focuses externalities on the same communities that benefit from the dam (jobs and revenue). Fossil fuels benefit the producers but everyone suffers the externalities.

> Being anti-dam is environmental NIMBYism. Hard disagree. Dams simply need to be categorized as dirty energy. They are probably less dirty than coal or natural gas energy. However dams are dirty and they should be treated as such. Categorizing an energy source as dirty does not mean we don't use it. It doesn't even mean we don't build more of it. We don't have 100% clean energy today. I hope that someday we do. And…

Does hydro have drawbacks? Yes. They change ecosystems. In many cases the new ecosystems are less desirable from the human perspective, but the reservoirs and rivers that are changed are still plenty viable for all sorts of ecosystems and life. This is highly different from fossil fuels, which produce pollution, toxins, and directly contribute to all of the evils of climate change.
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