Critically endangered fish caught, sold for $500,000 in China!!!!!

[Knowdafish]

Feb 17, 2010

Critically endangered fish caught, sold for $500,000 in China

It was no get-rich scheme but a stroke of good fortune for whomever caught the rare Chinese Bahaba. Below is a story posted Tuesday in the Scientific American. It's not clear exactly what became of the fish that was caught; only that this is a species likely bound for extinction thanks to overfishing because of a widespread belief that the bladders of these fish possess valuable medicinal qualities:


A critically endangered fish whose swim bladder is believed to cure illnesses has been caught and sold for more than $500,000 in China.
The 135-kilogram Chinese Bahaba (Bahaba taipingensis), the first fish of its species caught in at least a year, was thought to be more than 50 years old. A fishery in Guangdong Zhanjiang purchased the fish for 3.45 million yuan.

According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Bahaba's swim bladder "is highly appreciated for its medicinal properties and as a general tonic for health." Its use in traditional Chinese medicine resulted in the species being heavily overfished, to the point where any catch is widely reported in China's media.

Bahaba are endemic to the East China and South China seas. According to the IUCN, no spawning populations of the fish are known, and "there are likely to be few or no refuges remaining for recovery."




http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2...red-fish-caught-sold-for-500000-in-china.html

 

[Mikeberg]

Now this is something people should be upset about, if they cut it up when its criticaly endangered.

 

[fishy12]

They shld clone it!

 

[pupumole]

at least take some DNA samples ._. they could prolly hybridize it with fish of the same family and at least have something similar in the end, better than all extinct

 

[mgk]

I bet its already been cut up and sold or used for some iffy TCM remedy. Interestingly, TCM is so popular now because in the 30's there was a lack of available modern medicine in china, so the government started to support it(where they were against just a decade before).

Its really quite smart, when on a battlefield and a surgeon runs out of morphine what does he do? give the patient water and tell him its morphine. if the patients lucky he falls for the placebo effect or is at least calmer thinking he received something to help the pain.