The Yangtze finless porpoise has been designated as the city mascot of Wuhan.

On April 8, the 33rd Session of the Standing Committee of the 15th Wuhan Municipal People's Congress voted to pass the Decision of the Standing Committee of the Wuhan Municipal People's Congress on Designating the Yangtze Finless Porpoise as the City Mascot (hereinafter referred to as the Decision), officially making the Yangtze finless porpoise the city mascot of Wuhan. Wuhan has thus become the first city in China to designate the Yangtze finless porpoise as its city mascot through a local people's congress decision.

The Yangtze finless porpoise is a unique and the sole surviving freshwater dolphin species in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It is a Class I nationally protected wild animal, known as the "Smiling Angel," and is deeply loved by the citizens of Wuhan. According to a relevant official from the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, the porpoise's "return to the River City" represents the most vivid ecological achievement of Wuhan's solid efforts in advancing the comprehensive protection of the Yangtze River and implementing the ten-year fishing ban policy.

In recent years, Wuhan has achieved remarkable results in integrating the protection of the Yangtze finless porpoise with urban development: a stable population of Yangtze finless porpoises now inhabits the Wuhan section of the Yangtze River, the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has built the world's first sperm bank for the Yangtze finless porpoise in Wuhan, and a breakthrough has been made in the second-generation artificial breeding of the species; initiatives such as the "National Porpoise Care Month" and the "Digital Yangtze Finless Porpoise" have become iconic city brands; the finless porpoise element has appeared at important platforms including the Two Sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the International Wetland Conference, and the Wuhan City Promotion Conference in Paris, attracting over 100 million views online and becoming an ecological calling card for Wuhan's external presentation.