Dongting Lake - Environmental Issues

Environmental Issues

In 2007 fears were expressed that China's Finless Porpoise, a native of the lake, might follow the baiji, the Yangtze river dolphin, into extinction.

There have been calls for action to save the finless porpoise, of which there are about 1400 left living, with approximately 700 to 900 in the Yangtze, and approximately another 500 in Poyang and Dongting Lakes.

The 2007 population levels were less than half the 1997 levels, and the population continues to drop at a rate of 7.3 per cent per year.

Pressure on the finless porpoise population on Poyang Lake comes from the high numbers of ships passing through, as well as sand dredging.

After flooding of the Yangtze River in late June 2007, approximately 2 billion mice were displaced from the islands of the lake. The mice invaded surrounding communities, damaging crops and dikes and forcing the government to construct walls and ditches to control the population.

The lake was also featured on news services as having a problem with schistosoma and malaria infected mosquitoes.

Billions of mice were forced from their holes and were sent scurrying into local villages when officials opened the sluice gates on Dongting Lake in June 2007 to relieve flooding. Villagers killed an estimated 2 billion mice by beating them with shovels or using poison. The rotting mouse corpses should have been properly disposed of, and other animals - such as cats and dogs - were the unintended victims of the poisons.

A restoration project, the Sino-Norwegian Project of Biodiversity Protection Management （a joint Norwegian-Chinese endeavor）, began in 2005. According to a 2007 article in the China Daily, " will be restored to a sustainable biodiversity environment within five to 10 years".