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

Ancient Chinese Poems Reveal the Decline of a Critically Endangered Porpoise Over 1,400 Years

Researchers looked at poetry dating as far back as the Tang dynasty to find that the Yangtze finless porpoise’s range has decreased by 65 percent

Ancient Chinese poems document decline in endangered river porpoise

“Porpoises chased moonlight on silvered tides, as dragons summoned storm-clouds loom in sight,” wrote Qianlong, prolific poet and emperor of the Qing Dynasty, on a trip down the Yangtze River around 1745. He was referencing a sighting of the Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis). But little did Qianlong know that more than 300 years later, this porpoise species would be critically endangered, and scientists would draw on his poe…

Over 700 Ancient Chinese Poems Describe the Yangtze Finless Porpoises’ Decline

Learn more about the Yangtze finless porpoise and how researchers used ancient poems to map out it's habitat decline.

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.