As a relic from the past the odd-looking Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) is still among us, but for how long? This salamander is the largest and heaviest amphibian in the world, reaching a maximum length of 2 meters and weighing in at a maximum of 50 kg. They can also live up to a respectable age of around 50 years. With its small, almost invisible eyes and broad and flat head, it is not an animal we would consider to be beautiful (because it seems not at all anthropomorphic), however it is a unique creature that hardly has changed in over 30 million years. It belongs therefore to the group of ‘living fossils’ like the coelacanth. The Chinese giant salamander is a member of the group of cryptobranchids, together with its cousins the Japanese giant salamander (Andria japonicas) and the Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis). They constitute a lineage that has diverged from the rest of the salamanders around 170 million years ago in the Jurassic period. To put this in perspective: the reign of the dinosaurs would last longer, 105 million years more, than that dinosaurs have been extinct, since 65 million years. No wonder that the Chinese giant salamander is number 2 on the EDGE list, that set out to identify the most evolutionary distinct amphibians. This means that evolutionary speaking they are about as unique as an amphibian nowadays can get.
The enormous Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus)
General description
The Chinese giant salamander is found in the central, southern and southwestern part of China; its distribution has always been widespread and although they are still found in many areas, the numbers have been declining sharply (more about that later). They occur in mountain streams and lakes with flowing water at altitudes of around 300-800 meters. Their need for flowing water stems from the way they obtain their oxygen: they have inefficient lungs and no gills as an adult, so they rely mostly on oxygen uptake through their skin. As they are large animals with a relative large need for oxygen, the oxygen in the water needs to be replenished often by a high flow rate. In Chinese these salamanders are often referred to as ‘crying child’ because of the barking and hissing sounds they can make. Their diet consist mostly of crustaceans and fish, but given their large size it is no surprise that they are known to eat small mammals as well, and frogs and other salamanders. Chinese giant salamanders occupy underwater hollows and cavities, and spend their whole lives in water.
Threats
As mentioned before the group of salamanders as a whole is experiencing major declines in numbers and the conservation status of the Chinese giant salamander does not look rosy either. The exact surviving numbers are not known, but it is estimated that population has declined by 80% since the 1960’s, mainly due to overexploitation. In China the meat of this salamander is considered to be a delicacy and parts of its body are being used in traditional Chinese medicines. With the risk of sounding corny, what adds to the problem is the enormous amount of Chinese people in the world; if it was a Dutch delicacy it might have been a smaller problem. As the meat is viewed as a delicacy and the supply decreases and decreases, prices are soaring: from around 5 dollars per kilogram in the early 1980s to over 350 dollars in recent years. Needless to say that only leads to more pressure on the remaining populations. It is by the way not the only known amphibian that suffers from over-exploitation as a food source or medicine: about 96 species worldwide are threatened by overharvesting. But typically enough, 60% of these species occurs in China.
The Chinese giant salamander as a food item. Credit: Andy Deemer
So are there no regulations in place to protect these animals from over-exploitation? CITES is an international treaty drawn up in 1973 to protect wildlife against over-exploitation, however as this is an international treaty, trade within China is not regulated by CITES. Commercial farms for the salamanders can alleviate pressure on wild populations and although they have been established in recent years, Chinese giant salamanders are still being caught in the wild. On the one hand, because demand is greater than supply from these commercial farms and it is suspected that at least some of these farms use wild-caught individuals for breeding as well. Thanks to the immense pressure from Chinese consumption the amount of kilograms of Chinese giant salamander that is extracted from the wild is dropping steadily and more worrisome, the remaining individuals are getting smaller and smaller. The long generation time of this salamander of about 15 years means that only big adults are capable of reproducing and these are hardly left; populations with only few reproducing animals will have a hard time recovering to a more sustainable size.
And while the story of overharvesting for food and medicines is rather unique for this salamander, other more ‘general’ threats like habitat destruction and degradation and pollution have an impact too. Pollution mainly occurs from mining activities and farming; because of their permeable skin, salamanders (and other amphibians) are particularly vulnerable to changes in water quality. Deforestation causes habitat degradation, because increased runoff and siltation leads to a poorer water quality, less aquatic plants and ultimately less oxygen in the water. And lastly the construction of dams, often megaprojects in China, disrupts the flow of water in mountain streams and lakes, so vital for these animals.
Conserving this Chinese giant salamander will be a real challenge
Conservation
With all these amounting pressures on the populations of the Chinese giant salamander, the species faces an imminent extinction. The Chinese government declared already in 1988 this salamander as a protected species, however this has not stopped the illegal collection of the animals. In fact, in many areas the harvesting of these animals has only increased, with the use of modern methods like explosives, electrical shock tools and poisons, enabling the hunters to gather many more individuals in one go. And although only some restaurants are permitted to sell the salamander by Chinese law, trade of these creatures on the black market is thriving. Legislation does not seem to be the problem, but enforcement of these laws is. The same can be said for the 21 natural reserves in which the salamander lives, of which six were created specifically for the purpose of conserving this species. The idea is good, but in practice these reserves don’t work well for conservation of the Chinese giant salamander: all of these reserves are adversely affected by a combination of negative factors such as shortage of funding and personnel, lacking a conservation action plan, poaching, uncertain reserve status, and a lack of protection for salamander habitat. (this information is largely drawn from a very interesting book: Threatened amphibians of the world and the EDGE website)
If the Chinese can’t do it, maybe international organizations can contribute to the protection. Well, the EDGE project has the aim to protect and conserve evolutionary unique species. The Chinese giant salamander is definitely such a species and therefore this organization has developed a conservation plan in 2010 with international and national stakeholders. They are using different approaches to tackle the problem: interviews and surveys to establish how large the remaining populations are and to identify the threats and genetic analyses to understand the population dynamics of the species. But they are also planning to establish a conservation breeding facility and aiming to raise awareness among key stakeholders and the general public. Hopefully the general public will lose its appetite soon for this iconic species.
