The Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve is an area of wetland in the

Yangtze 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 ...

basin near Shishou,

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

province,

People's Republic 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 ...

. Inside the reserve is the Tian'e-Zhou lake which was an intended sanctuary for the

baiji The baiji (''Lipotes vexillifer'') is a probably extinct species of freshwater dolphin native to the Yangtze river system in China. It is thought to be the first dolphin species driven to extinction due to the impact of humans. This dolphin is ...

(Yangtze river dolphin) and is currently holding 28 finless porpoises.

The reserve

In 1988, the River Dolphin Research group in Wuhan proposed the idea of placing the rapidly declining baiji in the Tian'e-Zhou

oxbow lake An oxbow lake is a U-shaped lake or stream pool, pool that forms when a wide meander of a river is meander cutoff, cut off, creating a free-standing body of water. The word "oxbow" can also refer to a U-shaped bend in a river or stream, whether ...

. The reserve was intended to hold any captured baiji, since it had a healthy fish population and could sustain over 50 baiji if breeding was successful. The oxbow was connected to the Yangtze during the summer when the water level was high, so nets were installed to ensure the baiji would not escape. Five finless porpoises were first introduced in 1990 to see if it was a suitable habitat. Further relocation attempts took place. However, some porpoises died and others escaped the reserve during floods. In 1995, an adult female

was caught and immediately transported to the oxbow. After a few days she was seen swimming and feeding. After the 1996 flood she was found dead, entangled in the nets preventing her from leaving the reserve. Scientists studying her stomach contents show that there was little food inside, likely as a result of competition with more aggressive porpoises. She was the last baiji to live in the Tian'e-Zhou reserve. Samuel Turvey, ''Witness to Extinction''. Retrieved 2011-08-12.

References

External links

The baiji.org Foundation
Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve
BBC News
"Last chance for China's dolphin" Nature reserves in China Landforms of Hubei Wetlands of China {{Asia-protected-area-stub

The reserve

See also

References

External links