Posted on 08/08/2007 8:38:26 AM PDT by BGHater
The Yangtze River dolphin enjoys a rare and depressing distinction, according to new research.
The grey white, long-beaked animal is the world's first cetacean -the order of whales, dolphins and porpoises -to be made extinct by man, concludes an international team that has conducted comprehensive surveys of its habitat.
The demise of the near-blind mammal also represents the first extinction of a large vertebrate (backboned animal) for more than 50 years, since overhunting claimed the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. A zoologist said it was a "shocking tragedy."
The paper, lead-authored by Dr Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), is published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters and blames its extinction on a degraded habitat in the Yangtze waters of eastern China.
With little need to see in the shallow, turbid Yangtze waters, the dolphin - for centuries called the Goddess of the Yangtze and the subject of myth and legend - evolved a highly effective sonar above its beak.
But the roar of marine traffic along one of China's premier waterways effectively blinded it. Ships and tourist boats sucked them into their propellers, pollution poisoned their river home and, most of all, they suffered because of overfishing.
In the 1950s several thousand baiji, as the dolphins are known in Chinese, were thought to swim in the Yangtze. The last authenticated record was in 2001. By the end of 2006, an expedition by the team triggered reports that the creature was functionally extinct, suggesting only one or two individuals at most survived. Now the team concludes it is probably extinct.
Dr Turvey said: "The primary factor responsible for the baiji's extinction was probably unsustainable by-catch in uncontrolled and unselective local fisheries, which use rolling hook long lines, nets and electro-fishing.
"Relatively little information remains available on causes of baiji mortality, but between 40-50 per cent of all known baiji deaths over the past few decades were caused by fishing gear. "
"The loss of such a unique and charismatic species is a shocking tragedy. The Yangtze River dolphin was a remarkable mammal that separated from all other species over 20m years ago.
"This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet."
At the Hydrobiology Institute in Wuhan, the story of the stuffed, enamelled body of Qi-Qi, the most famous Yangtze River dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) to have lived in captivity tells how the march of modernisation transformed the dolphin's river home in silty waters into its graveyard.
The dolphin was found badly bruised, the victim of illegal fishing, in 1980. A female was introduced to his enclosure once but she died before she was old enough to reproduce.
"This wasn't the only Yangtze dolphin kept in captivity - there were actually several over the years," said Dr Turvey. "However, Qi-Qi lived for over 22 years, was the last surviving captive baiji, and became the most famous baiji individual.
Dr Turvey added, "The baiji's extinction also highlights the need for new conservation initiatives in China's increasingly threatened Yangtze ecosystem, which is also home to endangered freshwater porpoises, seven-metre long fish, giant salamanders and white Siberian cranes."
Scientists and environmentalists are now focusing on saving its cousin, the finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). About 2,700 porpoises lived along the Yangtze in 1991 but the population is now "rapidly declining," he said.
!Taste rike chricken!
Given the extreme concentration and focus of Chinese civilization and population around mailand China’s rivers and its ocean coasts - for more than 1,000 years - I am surprized this animal was not extinct before now. I wonder how many species of animal in Asia went extinct already - during the period of civilized humanity - before modern societies started tracking such events.
I wonder what competitors the Buffalo helped to extinction during the period when “native” Americans did all they could to insure the Buffalo’s dominance of the great plains.
....somehow the US (and George Bush) will get blamed for this....
Don’t know how true it is but I once read that 99% of all species that have ever lived on this planet are now extinct.
These things only lived in a very small part of one river in one country of the world. They didn’t mate well, and they were mostly blind. This species is was not exactly an evolutionary powerhouse. The idea that evolution on Earth has some how been stopped by environmenatl awarness is silly. There were only 5000 of these things 2300 years ago. It’s amazing they made it this long.
Up next for China’s extinction program - human girls.
Left for where?
“The grey white, long-beaked animal is the world’s first cetacean...to be made extinct by man.
Correction: Made extinct by the Chinese Communists”
Thank you. I noticed that too. Don’t blame this shiite on “mankind”, blame the damn Chinese, they did it.
now if only the spotted owl would follow
More proof that the Reds only pretend to be Green in order to make the world Red.
Can't tear-jerk gobs of cash off of soccer moms and ignorant college kids in China.
North Korea......
That's the real untold story here: they are not extinct. They have simply evolved into another species!
What kind of stupid logic is that?
Or Taiwan?
Or the opposite, you believe one will spontaneously appear because an inteligent design requires them to “be there”.
Not true. Democratuswithabackbonus became extinct in the 1960s.
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