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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Goddesses of the Yangtze River

I am now in Nanjing, China which lies along the Yangtze river.  The Chinese dolphins of the Yangtze are now officially declared "extinct".  They were venerated as " goddesses of the Yangtze'; until China's "great leap forward"; at which time they began to be hunted for food.  In the 1970's, with numbers drastically reduced, hunting was outlawed; but it was too late and pollution, etc killed off the remaining population.

The Chinese are making efforts to save the Finless Porpoise from the same fate.  It is against the law to hunt the Finless Porpoise in either China or Japan.