These animals were covered during the BBC wild China series a few years ago, and as such a relatively poorly known but highly important animal which plays an important part of the ecosystem in this part of China has likely been saved – though there is still much work to do.
As with an awful lot of other wildlife found within the borders of China, the Chinese alligator is severely endangered. In the wild it’s population numbers around 150, at this population is highly fragmented and no habitat has a significant number of these animals.
On the other hand, a captive breeding programme started back in the 1999 has been phenomenally successful with as much as 20,000 Chinese alligators currently looked after.
While some have been returned to the wild, a complicating factor is the incredibly polluted yangtze river that is their home. This river is so highly polluted,that along long stretches it is in capable of supporting any fish and therefore predators as well.
This is another instance of of not being combined with a change in a populations behaviour with regards to pollution. We can hope that as China continues to grow it’s population income, and the population slowly decreases over time, that these environmental situations will be resolved.
