Shanghai Science Communication Forum Focused on the Aquatic Life in the Yangtze River

      On January 1, 2021, a ten-year ban on fishing was officially implemented in the Yangtze River. On March 1, the Yangtze River Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China was officially promulgated and implemented. In the afternoon of July 31, 2021, the 167th session of Shanghai Science Communication Forum invited two researchers, namely Zhang Xianfeng and Xu Jun, from the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to talk about the bumpy fate and promising future of the “freshwater elves” in the Yangtze River through an online lecture under the theme of “Coordinated Protection of the Yangtze River”.

      Before the lecture began, the audience watched the Yangtze Finless Porpoise, one of the SSTM’s original documentary series on rare species in China. Then, researcher Zhang Xianfeng began with the story of the Yangtze finless porpoise and the Baiji porpoise, and introduced researchers’ tortuous experience in the process of protecting freshwater porpoises in the Yangtze river. Researcher Xu Jun started from the diversity of fish resources in the Yangtze River. Then, he introduced rare fishes unique to the Yangtze River such as Chinese sturgeon, white sturgeon, Yangtze seasonal shad and Chinese sucker, as well as the rich commercial fish resources of the Yangtze River half a century ago, and the influence of human activities on them.