Yang He, an amateur nature photographer in Yichang, carries his camera and tripod along the Yangtze River, where he has tracked and photographed finless porpoises since 2016. (Photo/Bo Ai Magazine)

“Yangtze finless porpoises are my children. The more people know them, the better we can protect them,” said Yang He. Yang, a native of Yichang in central China’s Hubei province, is an ordinary retiree and an amateur nature photographer. Since 2016, he has followed the Yangtze River to photograph the Yangtze finless porpoise, building up a personal archive of images and notes.

The Yangtze finless porpoise is a subspecies of the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, scientifically known as Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis. Found mainly in the Yangtze and some connected lakes, it is the world’s only population of finless porpoises living in freshwater. Sensitive to habitat changes, the species is often used as an indicator of the Yangtze River’s ecological health and is sometimes dubbed the “giant panda of the water” in Chinese media.

Key segments in the Yangtze River basin have been covered by a decade-long fishing ban since 2021. The protections span shoreline management, habitat restoration, pollution control, and law enforcement. Publicly released survey and research findings show the Yangtze finless porpoise population rose from about 1,012 in 2017 to an estimated 1,249 in a basin-wide scientific survey in 2022, suggesting a rebound after years of decline.

For Yang, photographing porpoises is a routine of waiting along the riverbank. He often heads out with a camera, a long telephoto lens, and a tripod, gears weighing more than 10 kilograms. If he hears that porpoises surfaced in a particular stretch the previous evening, he typically arrives at daybreak and waits. Surfacing can be brief and unpredictable. More often than not, he waits for hours for a few seconds of action. 

He keeps a daily log, noting water temperature, weather, river conditions, and the animals’ behavior. To tell individuals apart, he looks for subtle visual cues, such as pale spots around the mouth, patterns on the back, or scars. Yang said that by the Spring Festival holiday in 2024, he had taken more than 100,000 photos and written tens of thousands of words of notes. He estimated that equipment and travel had cost him more than 200,000 yuan, but he is happy to provide images and records for research or reporting.

In July 2016, Yang was photographing scenery along the Yangtze when he captured what he believed was a porpoise breaking the surface. Excited, he told a friend, “Unbelievable, I got a porpoise!” Others questioned his call. The episode nonetheless pushed him to keep searching. After retiring in 2019, he devoted more time to the pursuit. 

In August 2020, after upgrading his lens, Yang captured a high-definition, front-facing image of a porpoise leaping out of the water. The photo later spread across news and social platforms, drawing wider attention to the species and to the Yangtze’s ecological recovery.

On February 9, 2022, while shooting near the Gezhouba Dam section in Yichang, Yang spotted a porpoise with its tail entangled in ropes and dragging plastic bottles. He contacted the fishery enforcement, who arrived to remove the rope and release the animal. Yang later labeled the porpoise “209.” 

Over the next two months, he continued to wait along the bank, documenting the animal’s recovery, surfacing frequency, and behavioral changes. In May 2022, he photographed 209 again and captured images of a calf surfacing in the same waters.

By the Spring Festival of 2024, Yang was still photographing and keeping records along the Yichang stretch of the river, providing materials to researchers and media outlets. His family backed his devotion, and Yang’s wife also joined the crowd that expectantly waited for the coming of the finless porpoise.

(Credit to Bo Ai Magazine, Red Cross Society of China）