in 2007, scientists found a female yangtze giant soft-shell turtle in a zoo in changsha. the turtle had been there for more than fifty years, before yangtze giant soft-shell turtles became rare. the people in the zoo knew she was a large, female turtle but not that she had become one of the rarest on earth. the deputy director of the zoo was attending a conference about tigers and went to the speech about turtles for fun. he saw they were talking about the same kind of turtle as the one in his zoo.