Yangtze turtles on the very edge of extinction
June 2, 2008 by admin
With only three males and a single female left in the world, a team of experts is battling to save a species on the edge of extinction.
He nudged her gently. She nuzzled him back. And, almost as one, the dozen herpetologists, vets, conservationists and zoo officials who were gathered around the enclosure let out a sigh of relief.
He may be 100 years old and she a sprightly 80, but all hope for one of the most critically endangered species on the planet, the Yangtze giant soft-shell turtle, is vested in them. Nature must take its course and, say scientists, the first signs are more than encouraging.
Only four Yangtze turtles are known to exist. Three are male – one in a zoo in Suzhou in China’s Jiangsu province, one in Vietnam’s famous Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi, and another in the wild in a lake east of Hanoi.
Until recently there was no known female. Barring a miracle, the species was to die out, mirroring the destiny of Lonesome George, the sole survivor of the Galápagos’s Pinta Island tortoises.
From the Guardian.co.uk: Read more
I hear that they throw trash at the turtles. If those turtles were in America, half a million people would see them every week, and they would get the best treatment on earth. If China wasn’t controlled by such selfish idiots, their nature would be okay, and not so many people would be killed by the government for such stupid reasons. If the Chinese Christians were in charge, every living thing in China would be 200% happier.