Reserve to protect rare finless porpoises

A reserve is to be established for finless porpoises in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, to prevent their injury or depletion by the disturbance caused by the construction of a waterway, according to the Jiangsu Environmental Protection Department.

The reserve will be developed along a 45-kilometer reach of the Yangtze River at a cost of 128 million yuan ($20.5 million), the department said,

The Nanjing reserve will be twice as large as the one in the neighboring city of Zhenjiang, where construction work for the waterway has already taken place. The Zhenjiang reserve, established in 2003, is one of China's most important reserves for the endangered freshwater and coastal mammals, which are thought to be rarer than the giant panda.