Wu Jiamin is taking photos by the Yangtze River.

(CFP Photo)

Photographer Wu Jiamin has devoted 14 years to recording the movement of the Yangtze finless porpoise, a critically endangered species that Wu has been fascinated with.

Carrying with him a bottle of tea, two apples and kinds of photography gears, Wu usually rides motorbike along the north and south banks of the Yangtze River to take photos.

"When I was a child, I swam in the river and the animal with a slick black back sometimes chased after me. But I didn't know what it was then," Wu said excitedly of his childhood encounter with the freshwater porpoise.

Then in 2007, he began taking photos of the species and the first image he took was published in the local newspaper too. Now he has taken tens of thousands of photos and hundreds of videos of porpoises, which are valuable to understand the changes in the species’ population in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River over the past 14 years.

In 2015, he and six friends set up the Nanjing Finless Porpoise Conservation Association. They have been regularly patrolling the river to record the number of porpoises spotted as well as the time and weather of such findings, gradually building a database for analysis.

The photographer said he has numerous beautiful memories of the Yangtze finless porpoise, including seeing the birth of a pup under a bridge on June 12. He was glad because it showed the natural environment in Nanjing is suitable again for porpoise reproduction.

There are about 50 Yangtze finless porpoises in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River. However, due to the low reproduction rate, it will take decades before the species to be removed from the endangered status.