June 2007 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

June 2007
fins & tales
The Minimalist Aquarist …
‘doing more with less’ and ‘keeping it simple’
by Rein Breitmaier (KWAS)
mrrein@gmail.com
We tell a tale this month of a classic pursuit. This
undertaking was for a most elusive and secretive
sort of critter, the Irrawaddy. An endangered,
aquatic mammal actually instead of a fish, but as
their primary habitat also sources many of our
prized aquarium fishes, I hoped you would accept
the diversion none-the-less.
TMA first heard the
term “river dolphin”
while chatting up
another tourist in
our hotel in China
many months ago.
She was trying to
negotiate with the
lone English speaking
staffer in the
tour office for transportation
to an obscure
little Chinese
town where her information
indicated
that an institute had
been founded to aid
these endangered
swimmers. The staffer was patiently trying to get
connections and I was impressed with the idea of a
freshwater mammal of 2 or 3 meters in length.
While touring the Blue Zoo Aquarium a few days
later, we chanced upon a poster that invited public
support for saving this ‘Chinese National Treasure’.
It identified their animal as Lipotes vexillifer and its
range as the mid and lower Yangtze River. It also
called them living fossils which seemed a bit of a
stretch.
One hundred survivors of the species were reputed
to remain in the wild. Several weeks later when we
found ourselves touring that same Yangtze system
which flows through the dirty industrialized heartland
of Chongqing City, TMA pondered how anything
could live in such a murky, polluted environment
much less downriver from same. We never
heard whether the young American found her way
to the research institute and through its doors. The
Chinese can be quite secretive with things not yet
on their official tourism map. We moved on to
other things.
Another month and another country away, TMA
again chanced upon some River Dolphin lore while
touring Laos. This time the mighty Mekong River
was the waterway and while the common name of
the species was the same, these mammals were said
to have a blunt nose instead of the pointed snout
shown in the Chinese poster. Information was slim
again in Laos, showing them in a narrow geographic
range in the extreme south of the country
where the river swells to an incredible 14 kilometers
in width and encompasses some four thousand
islands before spilling across the border into Cambodia.
We heard here the name ‘Irrawaddy’ for the
first time and again exactly one hundred known
specimens were purported to exist. The chase again
ended before it started as our itinerary took us in
another direction again.
Several months and thousands of traveled kilometers
later we found ourselves returning to the banks
of the Mekong River, this time in the Cambodian
Capital of Phnom Penh. We resolved to explore
upstream as far as Kratie (pronounced Kroa-chey)
as that was where the guidebook claimed the paved
roads pretty much ended and travel became rugged.
The 350 km ‘improved’ road to Kratie took 9 hours
(Continued on page 7)
6 Kitchener-Waterloo Aquarium Society