China's famous 'river pigs' close to extinction: WWF

China’s wild finless porpoises are heading toward extinction, a conservation group said Thursday, with the dolphin-like animals now rarer than the giant panda.

With a stubby nose and grey body, the porpoises inhabit the Yangtze River and are famed for their cuteness in China, where they are known as “river pigs”.

But their numbers in the Yangtze, which is the country’s longest river, have more than halved in six years, according to an extensive survey.

Scientists spent over a month last year scanning more than 3,400 kilometres of the river in a hunt for the porpoises, but only saw 380, the conservation group WWF said in a statement.

Based on that observation, combined with sightings of the porpoises in lakes connected to the river, the total number alive in the wild was likely to be a little more than 1,000, the WWF said.

There are around 1,600 giant pandas living in the wild, according to the WWF, which has said the porpoise could become extinct in 15 years if no action is taken.