Proposal to better protect rare porpoise

Political advisers warn species could disappear within a decade

The endangered Yangtze finless porpoise has about a decade until extinction unless it is elevated to the nation's top-class protected species list, national political advisers from Hubei province warned.

"There are only about 1,000 finless porpoises left in the Yangtze River, fewer than the number of giant pandas," said Xu Xudong, deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Hydrobiology. "If the number keeps dropping at the current speed, the species might be extinct in a decade."