Jordanian conservationists set a five-year timeline to save the Dead Sea toothcarp from extinction, a small fish native to areas surrounding the Dead Sea.
Once a very common fish in rivers along the Dead Sea, the fish is now only found in a few meters of water in the Fifa Nature Reserve in the Jordan Valley.
“It reached this point of being endangered because of a lot of threats, meaning negative practices from some organizations and people who led the fish to become endangered,” Ibrahim Mahasneh, manager of Fifa Nature Reserve, told Reuters.
Mahasneh said releasing predatory fish like Tilapia fish in an unscientific way in areas where the Dead Sea Toothcarp lived, was one of the main reasons the animal became endangered.
“In addition to the mismanagement of the valleys by some organizations that are responsible for it. Water is exploited in an incorrect manner, and agricultural sewage is released into the valley,” he added.
“We are currently preparing surfaces similar to surfaces that this type (of fish) inhabits so that it can reproduce and be later released to its (natural) habitat,” Mahasneh said about the five-year plan to save the fish.
The Dead Sea Toothcarp is a subspecies of the Arabian killifish.
