Ancient Chinese Poetry Reveals 65% Decline in Yangtze Finless Porpoise Habitat

The world's only freshwater porpoise is rarer than the Great Panda. Researchers have now evaluated poems from the Chinese imperial era in order to reconstruct its decline. It stands for an entire ecosystem.

Ancient Chinese Poetry Reveals The 1,400-Year Decline Of World’s Only Freshwater Porpoise

The Yangtze finless porpoise is so revered that poets have been writing about it for more than a millennium, but that love has not stopped its loss of territory.

Poems spanning 1,400 years tell the tale of a revered porpoise

Chinese scientists trace the Yangtze finless porpoise's history in Asia’s longest river–for conservation.

Ancient Chinese Poems Reveal Tragic Decline of Yangtze’s Endangered Porpoise

Researchers used over 700 ancient Chinese poems to trace 1,400 years of ecological change

Ancient poems tell the story of charismatic river porpoise's decline over the past 1,400 years

Endemic to China's Yangtze River, the Yangtze finless porpoise is known for its intelligence and charismatic appearance; it looks like it has a perpetual smile on its face. To track how this critically endangered porpoise's habitat range has changed over time, a team of biodiversity and conservation experts compiled 724 ancient Chinese poems referencing the porpoise from historic collections across China.

Ancient Chinese poetry reveals the steady decline of freshwater porpoise populations