China’s Last River Dolphin Rebounds Thanks to Decades of Conservation

A Yangtze finless porpoise swims with a newborn calf in Yichang in 2023. Credit:YANG HE/CHINA DAILY

Sometimes, tragedy becomes the turning point for change. When the Baiji dolphin known as Qiqi died in 2002, it cast a shadow of despair over China’s conservation community. Qiqi — meaning “rarity” in Chinese — had been rescued from the Yangtze River in 1980 and lived in captivity for over two decades.

That sorrow deepened in 2007 when The Royal Society published findings declaring the Baiji “functionally extinct.” The announcement, based on a six-week internatioOcenal field survey, marked the first global extinction of a large vertebrate in over 50 years. Though a few individuals might have survived, the species could no longer reproduce in the wild — a grim indicator of the Yangtze River ecosystem’s decline.

“The Baiji’s extinction represents a major evolutionary loss,” said Wang Ding, secretary-general of the Chinese National Committee for UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme. As an apex predator, the Baiji’s disappearance signaled a chain reaction threatening other river species.

Wang recalled that scientists had sounded the alarm as early as 1978, when only about 300 Baiji dolphins remained. Despite government and institutional efforts — including research initiatives and protected reserves — the species’ decline proved irreversible. “Qiqi’s death and the Baiji’s extinction were painful lessons,” Wang said. “But they also refocused our mission — to save the Yangtze finless porpoise, the river’s last surviving cetacean.”

A New Focus: The Yangtze Finless Porpoise

Smaller and rounder than the Baiji, the Yangtze finless porpoise lacks a dorsal fin and uses echolocation to navigate murky waters. According to Wang Xi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Hydrobiology, its ancestors migrated from the ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago, adapting fully to the river’s freshwater environment.

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However, industrial growth and river traffic soon pushed the species toward crisis.

Populations plummeted from around 2,700 in the early 1990s to 1,800 in 2006. A 2012 national survey found only about 1,040 individuals remaining — most in Poyang and Dongting Lakes. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the porpoise as critically endangered in 2013.

“The main culprit is underwater noise,” Wang explained. “As a species reliant on echolocation, the porpoise is highly sensitive to motorized vessel sounds, which disrupt communication and foraging — even proving fatal.” Additional threats included ship strikes, water pollution, and habitat fragmentation caused by dams and docks.

Turning the Tide: A Three-Pronged Strategy

China responded with an intensive three-part conservation plan: ex-situ, in-situ, and captive breeding efforts.

• Ex-situ conservation creates “safe havens” by relocating porpoises to enclosed water bodies resembling their natural habitat. One such refuge, the Tian’ezhou Oxbow Reserve in Hubei province, offers Yangtze-like water quality and minimal human disturbance. Today, more than 150 porpoises live across four ex-situ reserves, with roughly 10 calves born annually.

  
  

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• In-situ conservation focuses on protecting porpoises in their natural environments. Eight protected areas now span the Yangtze River and its major lakes, covering over 30% of the river’s middle and lower reaches.

  
  

• Captive breeding and rearing programs continue at Wuhan’s Baiji Dolphinarium — once home to Qiqi — where 12 porpoises live, including five born in captivity and three of the second generation.

  
  

  Signs of Recovery

  
  

  Thanks to these efforts and broader ecological initiatives — including the Yangtze River Protection Law and a 10-year fishing ban — the species is making a comeback. The population grew from 1,012 in 2017 to 1,249 in 2022, marking the first recorded rebound since monitoring began.

  
  

  “This recovery is extremely rare for freshwater cetaceans,” Wang noted.

  
  

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  Globally, 22 of the world’s 131 known cetacean species are critically endangered, and 20 are endangered, according to IUCN data. China’s success has drawn international praise, with technologies such as passive acoustic monitoring now being adopted in Southeast Asia to protect Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia’s Mekong River.

  
  

  Looking ahead, Chinese scientists are exploring AI applications in cetacean monitoring and collaborating internationally on conservation technology.

  
  

  “An IUCN expert once said, ‘China’s conservation practices for the Yangtze finless porpoise have illuminated the dawn for global cetacean protection,’” Wang recalled. “This is both our pride and our lasting promise.”

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