On July 21, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released an updated report on the Global Red List of Endangered Species, officially declaring the extinction of the Yangtze River white sturgeon and the extinction of the Yangtze River sturgeon in the wild. In addition, the report shows that 26 species of sturgeon remaining worldwide are threatened with extinction.
△ White sturgeon Source: WWF WWF
△ Yangtze River Sturgeon Source: WWF World Wide Fund for Nature
They lived in contemporaneous with dinosaurs
The Yangtze River white sturgeon is huge, up to seven or eight meters long, and is known as the "King of Freshwater Fish in China". In 1983, the white sturgeon was listed as a rare and rare wild animal requiring strict protection, and fishing was strictly prohibited.
△ Source: IUCN Sturgeon Expert Group Member Wei Qiwei
△ White sturgeon has appeared on stamps issued by China Post.
Like the Yangtze River Chinese sturgeon, the white sturgeon is one of the very few ancient fish that survived from the Cretaceous Cretaceous period, dating back 150 million years. Most of the sturgeon are "anthropolyogenic migratory" and are distributed in the large rivers of the northern hemisphere and the wider water surfaces of the shallow coastal areas.
As an important link between oceans and rivers for the exchange of information and materials, they become indicative species of ecological status and a reliable indicator of aquatic biodiversity in the Northern Hemisphere.
They are "the most threatened taxa in the world"
Affected by human activities, sturgeon populations are rapidly declining and endangered, making them "the most threatened taxa in the world", and the results of the IUCN Global Sturgeon Assessment show that about 2/3 of sturgeon populations are critically endangered.
Globally, the main threats to sturgeon include illegal fishing from the illegal trade in wild caviar and fish meat, dams blocking their migration routes, unsustainable sand and gravel mining destroying their spawning grounds, habitat loss affecting the survival of sturgeon, and so on.
Nearly 40,000 species in the world are on the verge of extinction
Every species is a miracle of life, and the extinction of the white sturgeon and the wild extinction of the Yangtze River sturgeon are heart-wrenching.
According to the decline rate of the number of species, the total number of species, geographical distribution and other rules, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species divides species into "extinction", "extinction in the wild", "critically endangered", "endangered" and "vulnerable".
According to the IUCN's newly released Red List, 38,543 species are currently endangered, accounting for about 28% of all assessed species.
Xiaobian has compiled some of the animals that have become extinct or endangered in recent years, let us remember what they look like:
The extinction of every species is deplorable
Protects organisms
We still have a lot to do
Source: CCTV News