International collaboration has been a well precedented and often crucial aspect of conservation projects for endangered species like the Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), which is the most critically endangered turtle species in the world. With its numbers reduced by habitat loss, pollution and over-harvesting for the Asian food markets, by 2007 only four individuals were known to remain. They were all male. In January of that year the American-based Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) sponsored a conservation workshop in China that led to the identification of an additional captive specimen in a Chinese zoo. It was a female. With the encouragement and guidance of the TSA, the Chinese authorities eventually agreed to unite her with one of the three remaining males, in an attempt to breed them. Both animals are extremely old and, to date, only clutches of infertile eggs have been produced. Hopefully, with the assistance of turtle experts from around the world and with the coordinated efforts of the TSA and the China Zoo Society, the project will succeed. The survival of an entire species depends on it.
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