The Chinese bahaba (''Bahaba taipingensis''), also known as the giant yellow croaker,Moore, M. (21 August 2012)

The Telegraph. Retrieved 18 May 2019. is a

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

species of marine and

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

water

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

in the family

Sciaenidae Sciaenidae is a family (biology), family of ray-finned fishes belonging to the Order (biology), order Acanthuriformes. They are commonly called drums or croakers in reference to the repetitive throbbing or drumming sounds they make. The family co ...

. It is a large fish, reaching lengths up to and weights of . It is found on the coast of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, from the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

estuary southwards to the

Pearl River The Pearl River (, or ) is an extensive river system in southern China. "Pearl River" is often also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Pearl tributaries within Guangdong, specifically the Xi ('west'), Bei ('north'), and Dong ( ...

estuary, including the waters of

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are shallow seas, subtidal aquatic beds,

rocky shores A rocky shore is an intertidal area of seacoasts where solid rock predominates. Rocky shores are biologically rich environments, and are a useful "natural laboratory" for studying intertidal ecology and other biological processes. Due to their h ...

, and

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

waters.

Distribution

The Chinese bahaba is known only from the parts of China from the Yangtze River southwards to Hong Kong. It enters estuaries to spawn and in the past it was seasonally numerous in this habitat. This includes the estuaries of the Yangtze River, the Min River and the Pearl River and around the coast of

Zhoushan Island Zhoushan Island is the principal and namesake island in the Zhoushan Islands, formerly romanized as the ChusanIslands, an archipelago administered by Zhoushan Prefecture in Zhejiang Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the provinc ...

Behaviour

The Chinese bahaba is a

benthopelagic The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a layer of ...

fish that feeds mostly on crustaceans such as shrimps and crabs.

Conservation status

Annual catches of 50 tonnes were taken in the 1930s, but this had dwindled to 10 tonnes per year by the 1950s and 1960s when few large fish were caught. The Chinese bahaba is threatened by

overfishing Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing Fish stocks, fish stock), resu ...

and it is listed as

by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

. Degradation of its estuarine spawning habitats may also have contributed to its decline. Although listed as a Grade II State Protected Species in China, which is supposed to restrict its capture, the sale of recently caught individuals to very high prices still occurs, and is even announced to the media. A part of the Pearl River estuary has been protected since 2005 by the Chinese Government in an attempt saving the species. Unlike the Chinese mainland, there is no legal protection of this species in Hong Kong, despite it being rare there, and that the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...

and fisheries scientists at the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

have recommended its protection to the local government. Chinese bahaba caught in Hong Kong are also sometimes transferred to the Chinese mainland where resold. The fishing is prompted by the value placed on the

swim bladder The swim bladder, gas bladder, fish maw, or air bladder is an internal gas-filled organ (anatomy), organ in bony fish that functions to modulate buoyancy, and thus allowing the fish to stay at desired water depth without having to maintain lift ...

s of this fish for use in

traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...

. In some markets, notably the Chinese markets, a good specimen swim bladder fetches more than its weight in gold. As the population of the Chinese bahaba declined, some trade shifted towards the closely related

totoaba The totoaba or totuava (''Totoaba macdonaldi'') is a species of marine fish endemic to the Gulf of California in Mexico. It is the largest member of the drum family Sciaenidae and is the only extant species in the genus ''Totoaba''. Originally a ...

(''Totoaba macdonaldi'') of Mexico, a species that now also is seriously threatened.Juarez, Lorenzo M.; Pablo A. Konietzko; and Michael H. Schwarz (15 December 2016)
Totoaba Aquaculture and Conservation: Hope for an Endangered Fish from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.
WAS. Retrieved 18 May 2019.Hance, J. (11 January 2016)
China's craze for 'aquatic cocaine' is pushing two species into oblivion.
The Guardian. Retrieved 18 May 2019.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q703327 Bahaba Endemic fauna of China Fish of China Fauna of Hong Kong Critically endangered fish Critically endangered fauna of Asia Fish described in 1932 Taxa named by Albert William Herre Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Critically endangered fauna of China

Distribution

Behaviour

Conservation status

See also

References