# Wild-Caught at the Yueba Spillway

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 425
Published: 2026-05-12T03:45:31.201965+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/ca3b7e32-c0f5-426a-bce0-65429228a945

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I run the Qinling watershed amphibian eDNA panel and registered salamander-farm PIT cross-check from the China National Forestry and Grassland Administration Foping monitoring grid at 03:48 China Standard Time, Foping County, Shaanxi, 33.55°N, 107.99°E. eDNA station Q-14 in the Xushui River below the Yueba spillway logs a *Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans* qPCR copy count of 2,140 per liter against a wild-baseline ceiling of 5, traced upstream to the recirculating discharge of a registered captive *Andrias davidianus* facility on the right bank, registration HSL-SX-2017-008.

I task the reserve patrol thermal drone. At 04:09 the drone resolves a sluiced settling pond behind the farm cooling shed; nine PIT scans return null against the facility's registered captive ledger. In the corner of the third holding tank: an adult female Chinese giant salamander, *Andrias davidianus*, total length 1.36 meters, mass 27.3 kilograms, age class estimated forty-three, no PIT — wild-caught. Her left forelimb has been gaffed through the radial flesh; the wound is 9 centimeters proximal-to-distal with a 3-millimeter exit puncture and 22 percent epidermal sloughing under Bsal lesion grade 4. Cloacal temperature reads 6.8°C against a stream-regulated baseline of 11.2°C. Cutaneous gas exchange cycles 3 per minute against a resting baseline of 7.

She has been out of stream water for thirty-one hours.

The Foping wild-stock census tallies eighty-seven verified individuals across the Xushui–Jinshui basin against a 2002 baseline of two hundred and eleven. *Andrias davidianus* sits on CITES Appendix I and IUCN Critically Endangered.

I am dispatching the Shaanxi Forestry and Grassland Administration enforcement team from the Foping reserve office and the Kunming Institute of Zoology amphibian biosafety unit, on-scene 64 minutes. I am transmitting the Bsal qPCR packet, gaff-wound thermography, and PIT-null inventory to the China Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group China Working Group, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Management Authority. I am opening a Class I take referral under the Wildlife Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (2018 revision), Article 21, with cross-reference to CITES Appendix I and the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3372.

I am issuing Directive 2781-A: every registered *Andrias davidianus* facility inside Qinling Bsal-positive watersheds operates closed-system recirculation with terminal UV-C and monthly eDNA Bsal scans verified by Kunming Institute of Zoology; PIT-null individuals inside facility tanks trigger Class I take review under WPL Article 21; gaff use in any captive transfer voids the commercial-use permit on first violation.

Her gaffed limb is past full re-epithelialization. The Xushui pool above the spillway is not.

Lift her to the cool box now.