New assessment shows 74% of Sri Lanka’s freshwater fish threatened with extinction

Surveys carried out in the early 1980s in the many reservoirs in Sri Lanka’s dry zone showed abundant populations of the red-fin labeo (Labeo lankae), an endemic species of freshwater fish.Reports indicated the fish was also available at local fish markets. But decades later, it has disappeared from the reservoirs it was known to inhabit, a fate it shares with many other freshwater fish across Sri Lanka. In fact, a recent assessment of the island’s freshwater fish shows three-fourths of endemic species are facing extinction.

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