IHB Prof. WANG Ding interacted with another participant at the 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals.

The Society for Marine Mammalogy’s (SMM) 19th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals was held in Tampa, Florida from November 27 to December 2, 2011. Invited by Randall S. Wells, president of SMM, Prof. WANG Ding, Drs. HAO Yujiang and ZHENG Jinsong from Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHB) attended the conference. About 2,000 scientists and students from all over the world were present at the conference, delivering 351 oral presentations and presenting 664 posters.  

The critically endangered status of the Yangtze finless porpoise drew great attention of the conference participants. Dr. Hao made an oral presentation entitled “Accelerating population decline of another Yangtze cetacean species: the second baiji?”. Dr. Zheng presented a poster entitled “Genetic evaluation and development prognosis on ex situ protected Yangtze finless porpoises living in Tian-e-Zhou National Nature Reserve, China”. Both presentations introduced their latest achievement in population ecology and conservation genetics of the Yangtze finless porpoise.   

At the conference, Prof. Wang discussed the conservation plan for Irrawaddy dolphins inhabiting Mekong River in Cambodia with Randall Wells, Randall Reeves (Chairman of IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group), and Frances Gulland (Commissioner on the Marine Mammal Commission of USA). Prof. Wang was invited to attend the Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphin Conservation Workshop which is to be held in Cambodia on the second week of January 2012.  

Dr. HAO Yujiang made an oral presentation entitled “Accelerating population decline of another Yangtze cetacean species: the second baiji?”.

Dr. ZHENG Jinsong presented a poster entitled “Genetic evaluation and development prognosis on ex situ protected Yangtze finless porpoises living in Tian-e-Zhou National Nature Reserve, China” at the poster session.