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Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle
Medium: oil
Year Produced: 2008
Dimensions in inches (H x W): 20" x 28"
The Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) 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 remained. They were all
male.
In January 2007 the American based Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA)
sponsored a conservation workshop, in China, which resulted in an
additional captive specimen being identified, in a Chinese zoo. It
was a female -- the only female known to exist.
With the encouragement and guidance of the TSA, the Chinese authorities
finally agreed to unite the very last pair, in an attempt to breed
them. Both animals are extremely old and, to date, only clutches of
infertile eggs have been produced. Hopefully, though, with
the assistance of turtle experts, from around the world, and 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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