ON FRIDAY, an academic paper released by the River Fisheries Research Institute declared that the Chinese paddlefish was extinct. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

Endemic to the Yangtze River, the fish were considered to be the largest freshwater fish in existence, as they could grow to 7 meters in length and weigh up to 300 kilograms. It was one of the few ancient fish surviving from the Mesozoic Cretaceous period 140 million years ago, the majority of its counterparts having died out in the great extinctions that followed.

According to the paper, the fish probably went extinct between 2005 and 2010. That matches media reports, which show that the last sighting of a Chinese paddlefish was in 2003. The last sighting of a juvenile specimen was in 1995.

Needless to say, the extinction of the species means heavy losses to the biodiversity of nature, as well as to the genetic pool because it is difficult to find "relatives" that carry similar genes with it. And since it was at the top of the food pyramid in the Yangtze River, its extinction might affect the whole food chain underneath.

Although the Chinese paddlefish died out 10 to 15 years ago rather than today, the extinction of the species should arouse our attention, we cannot afford to let any more species follow it into extinction.

China has strengthened its conservation efforts over the past decade, and hopefully those efforts and people's greater awareness of the need to protect species will prevent a repeat of the tragedy of the Chinese paddlefish in the future.

Of course, animals need months even years to cultivate the next generation, while seeds need years even decades to grow into a mature tree. Although we cannot bring back the species that have already gone extinct, we can save those species such as the Chinese and Yangtze sturgeons, both endemic to the Yangtze basin, that are critically endangered.

On Wednesday, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced a 10-year fishing ban along key areas of the Yangtze River to protect biodiversity in the country's longest waterway.

Starting this year, the ban will be observed across 332 conservation areas in the Yangtze River basin. The ban needs to be strictly enforced to protect the remaining biodiversity of the Yangtze River.