Chinese paddlefish "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• Scientists says ancient Chinese paddlefish has been declared extinct.

 

More from the news:

• According to a recent study in the journal Science of the Total Environment led by Hui Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences in Wuhan, China, overfishing and dam construction drove the roughly 200-million-year-old animals to extinction. 
• Scientists say that two other species native to the river, the reeves shad and the Yangtze River dolphin (or baji), have also gone extinct.

 

About Chinese paddlefish

• The Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius), also known as the Chinese swordfish and sometimes called the “panda of the Yangtze,” was one of the world’s largest freshwater fish species. 
• Nicknamed the "water tiger" and "panda of the Yangtze," the Chinese paddlefish is reportedly dead after surviving 150 million years.
• Its ancestral home was the Yangtze River.
• Only a few freshwater fish can grow bigger, such as the Mekong giant catfish, sturgeon and alligator gar.
• While hunting, the silver-colored Chinese paddlefish used their long snouts to sense electrical activity and find their prey
• In an effort to protect biodiversity, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs last week launched a 10-year fishing ban in more than 300 conservation areas along the Yangtze River.

 

How did the study determine that it has gone extinct?

• Chinese researchers made this conclusion based on the Red List criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

• The IUCN Red List has listed the Chinese paddlefish as "critically endangered" since the 1990s, estimating its population at less than 50 individuals in 2009.
•  The largest Chinese paddlefish recorded was 23 ft long and weighed over several thousand pounds, according to the list.
• The Red List has several categories for extinction, or for how endangered a species is. For example:

1. “Extinct in the wild” means a species survives only in a captive environment while “locally extinct” means a species has ceased to exist in a particular area but may exist in other areas.
2. “Functionally extinct”, which means the species continues to exist but it has too few members to enable to reproduce meaningfully enough to ensure survival.
3. Globally extinct”, it means a species has no surviving member anywhere. Such a conclusion is reached when there is no reasonable doubt left that its last member has died.

 

Yangtze River:

• The Yangtze or Yangzi is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country.
•  It rises in the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea.