One of the four last known Yangtze giant softshell turtles has died. Kelli Bender is the Pets Editor at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2013, covering pets, animal rescue and wildlife.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Recovery of this softshell turtle species now requires working with a global population of only two or possibly three known ...

A few months ago, on a sunny afternoon in northern Vietnam, I set off in a small fishing boat outfitted with a motorbike engine to find the world’s most endangered turtle. Of the planet’s four known ...