Restocking the Polluted Yangtze: Fishy?
by Rachel Wasser, Beijing, China on 04.27.07
The panda might be more charismatic - heck, even its poo is popular - but surely the Chinese sturgeon also deserves its place in the sun. Or, rather, in the dank, irreversibly polluted water of the Yangtze. Last week this massive river, source of 35% of China's total freshwater resources, was said by state media to be "seriously" and "large[ly] irreversibly" polluted. This week, 400,000 rare fish were released into the river in an attempt to save its fish stocks from extinction - and to follow up on Earth Day. Included in the masses of fish were about 110,000 Chinese sturgeon. "Weird" animals need protection, too, and the sturgeon is surely deserving. One of the oldest vertebrate species in the world, it's been around for more than 200 million years. Pre-release, the precise number found in the Yangtze was unknown, but placed at about 500. Now there should be about 110,500 - hopefully not all choking for breath, and hopefully not going the way of the adorable and functionally extinct Yangtze river dolphin. We can take comfort from the words of a researcher at the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute surgeon breeding center: "[The sturgeon] have been raised in a water quality similar to that of the river, and should adapt soon." (Lucky them!) Some of the fish have been implanted with devices for monitoring, and those that fail to adjust to potentially noxious freedom may well be brought back to the institute for "recuperation." ::Xinhua News Agency (April 15 and April 23)
The comment about "recuperation" sounds suspiciously like an article mentioned in this week's TIME, about the Chinese efforts to introduce captive-bred pandas back into the wild. Although theoretically the purpose of the breeding program (rather than sale to foreign zoos) it went very poorly, with the panda first attacked by a bear, then taken back in for intensive care, re-introduced, and then falling out of a tree, breaking a leg, and going missing. It does cast some doubt on these attempts by the Chinese government to appear more environmentally friendly.
Douglas Adams' comment on the Yangtze river dolphin's plight, from Last Chance to See (paraphrased, unfortunately, since I don't have the book at hand) -- Imagine you're in a club. The doors are locked and you can't get out. They're playing terrible music much too loud and your ears hurt. All the lights are out so you can't see anything. And they're slowly filling the place up with raw sewage.
So basically they're going to be dumping more fish into the Loud Dark Stinky Club. Poor fish.
If the Chinese expect fish in their rivers and lakes to survive, they must institute and enforce policies that prevent dumping of chemicals, trash and untreated or treated sewage into their waters.
Restocking of fish is a good gesture but it may not be enough. Re-establishment of a water environment that is fish-friendly is required.
As Global Warming further accentuates the depletion of China's water resources, the problem of river pollution may increase dramatically as less water becomes available for distribution, thus concentrating the pollutents.
Right now, water from three southern rivers is being pumped north as the water issues there have become critical. Chinese people have only about 1/15 the water available as compared to the average citizen in the world and about 300 million are suffering from lack of good drinking water. They are even worried about water well contamination and so much underground water has been used up that the earth in some areas has substantially subsided.
Water in some of their rivers is being over utilized to such a degree that water levels have dropped to the point of affecting river transport. Too much water has been used in some rivers so that fresh water no longer reaches the ocean. The Pearl River is an example of this problem with salt water at high tide flowing up river rather than fresh water flowing down river.
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