![]() While the last turtle god of Hoan Kiem perished in 2016 (“It was like losing part of our culture,” Hoang Van Ha, a conservationist with the Asian Turtle Program, or ATP, told The New Yorker), the species is not wholly gone - just almost. Lê Lợi handed over the legendary sword to the Turtle God and named the spot “The Lake of the Returned Sword,” or Hoan Kiem Lake. After his success, he was approached by Kim Qui, who asked for the sword back for the Dragon King. The story goes something like this: Kim Qui’s master, a deity called the Dragon King, gave Emperor Lê Lợi his legendary sword, known as “Heaven’s Will.” With it, Lê Lợi freed Vietnam from a thousand-year rule by the Chinese. In Vietnamese mythology, the Yangtze giant softshell turtle is also the living representative of the Great Turtle God, Kim Qui. It’s not difficult to imagine him as a younger man, catching and killing the world’s biggest non-marine turtle, weighing upward of 200 kilograms (440 pounds) - now perhaps the most endangered animal on the planet. Hoanh looks spry and healthy for an octogenarian, speaking animatedly in Vietnamese. With his long spear and a net flanked in cruel hooks, Hoanh was known for decades in his little village as an able hunter of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle ( Rafetus swinhoei). ![]() The plan would be to capture the animals and keep them in a semi-wild captive state, but more funding and resources are needed to move forward.Įighty-eight-year-old Le Huy Hoanh stands up from his bench and carefully poured tea in rural Vietnam, and mimes for us how he used to kill gods.But conservationists say if they can just locate a male and female, survival for the world’s biggest freshwater turtle is still possible.After decades of dams, overhunting and pollution the Yangtze giant softshell turtle is down to three known individuals. ![]()
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January 2023
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