Yangtze River Dolphins say so long and thanks for all the fish

[Raph's Girl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2007081...zeriverdolphin

The Yangtze River dolphin, one of the world's rarest mammals, is no more, a victim of China's breakneck economic growth and competition for food with one of the world's most common large mammals - human beings.

"We can say that the animal is functionally extinct," says August Pfluger, head of the Zurich-based Baiji.org Foundation, which in December co-sponsored a six-week, 2,000-mile (3,500-km) survey of the Yangtze without finding a single remaining member of the critically endangered species. The dolphin, one of only four exclusively freshwater species in the world, may have the unhappy distinction of being the first aquatic mammal to go extinct in more than half a century - and the first large mammal driven into oblivion by environmental degradation.

Nicknamed the "goddess of the Yangtze," and long considered auspicious by fishermen, the pale-colored, human-sized dolphins have always been rare: a 1997 survey recorded only 14 left in the river. (A captive dolphin died of old age in a Chinese zoo in 2002). But Pfluger says human pressure pushed the baiji past the tipping point. "The main reason is overfishing. The Chinese still use unsustainable fishing methods like dynamite. There's still a lot of illegal fishing, so the dolphins were competing with humans for food."

According to Wang Ding, a researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology and a leading expert on the baiji, damming on the river and noise from heavy boat traffic may have disoriented the dolphins, which are mostly blind and search for food in the sandy shallows using sonar. The confused and starving animals may then have wandered into boat propellers. Heavy dredging in shipping channels could also have made it harder for the animals to locate each other and hunt for increasingly scarce fish. "Dredging is a very serious problem," Wang says. "It destroys spawning grounds of fish. There are also too many boats. The baiji depend on their sonar ability to survive."

As top-level predators, dolphins like the baiji are an "indicator species" - bellwethers of the general health of an ecosystem. Their disappearance bodes ill for the Yangtze, which supports more than 400 million people, roughly 6% of the world's total population. Wang says the Yangtze is relatively unpolluted. But untrammeled commerce and massive hydrological projects like the Three Gorges Dam have dramatically altered the river's landscape. With as many as 60 boats per km of river in some areas, the Yangtze already looks less like a river than a highway during rush hour. "Baiji are at the top of the food chain just like human beings," Wang says. "If the river can't support baiji, someday it won't support humans either."

Indeed, baiji aren't the only animal facing extinction. Wang says the finless porpoise, another large cetacean native to the river, has also seen its population plummet because of shipping and hydrological engineering. When Wang surveyed the river in the early 1990s, he found about 1,200 of the porpoises; 15 years later, there were fewer than half that number left. But Wang says it may not be too late to save the species. Galvanized in part by the baiji's disappearance, Chinese scientists are taking aggressive steps to rescue the finless porpoise, including breeding the animals in a lake preserve. In fact, Wang believes it may not even be too late for the baiji: there may be a handful of baiji dolphins left in some isolated backwater of the Yangtze. If they can be located and captured, he says, breeding might yet save their species. Pfluger, however, is not so optimistic. "Maybe one or two are left," he says. "But they don't have any chance to survive."

[Buslady]

It's too bad, I like the freshwater dolphins cos they're so different from the common oceanic delpinidae. I've always know these guys were super rare but now that they're pretty much gone sucks. Stupid humans and their greed and failure to realised how much they've screwed over a fellow intelligent being to the point of exctinction. Human created extinctions are not natural, these poor guys might've been around for the next million years if it weren't for us. In the end, after we've destroyed everything we'll become extinct as well.

Supposedly the Chinese Gov't decaled them a 'national treasure'...HAH! BULL!

Yeah if they find some small family of these baiji in some backwater, they breed them, etc...where are they gonna live? In big fish tanks? Their natural habitat is destroyed. End of story. They were kicked out of their home, they die out.

[ThirdMarioBro]

Sometimes I truly hate China. They are probably the most anti-conservation nation on the planet, and always pull economic growth as their excuse. Now another one of the world's intelligent (their brains are bigger than our's) and sentient species. I call that murder.

This is almost as bad as Japanese fishing industry's mass-Dolphin slaughter.

[OA]

Terrible, terrible news. Hopefully, the Amazonian counterpart will fare better, though severe pressures in those rainforests aren't helping either...

What gets me though is that if in '97 they only found 14, they probably should have acted then (capturing, breeding, etc.). I mean, whenever we have an endangered animal, lots of work goes into increasing population, esp. if that animal has a pop in the low hundereds. To get to the point where you can almost count the pop. on 2 hands and NOT do something that should be a crime as well. Those scientists should have acted much sooner (though to be honest, I don't know their exact situation and how much of an attempt was made)

B/w this and the gazillion of recently recalled Mattel toys hopefully people/governements will realize that all that "cheap, sustainable" work/products coming out of China needs a serious overhaul (which is completely unlikely)...

[Ra]

Originally Posted by ThirdMarioBro

Sometimes I truly hate China. They are probably the most anti-conservation nation on the planet, and always pull economic growth as their excuse. Now another one of the world's intelligent (their brains are bigger than our's) and sentient species. I call that murder.

Well said. Why in the world didn't they stop this before it happened?! Did they even try and prevent this from happening? Not that I know of. At least there is that slim hope that some are still alive so then they can be bred, but that is a very slim possibility.

[Buslady]

Originally Posted by ThirdMarioBro

Sometimes I truly hate China. They are probably the most anti-conservation nation on the planet, and always pull economic growth as their excuse. Now another one of the world's intelligent (their brains are bigger than our's) and sentient species. I call that murder.

This is almost as bad as Japanese fishing industry's mass-Dolphin slaughter.

Or their claims of whaling for "scientific purposes" ....then why are those whales ending up in the butchers with little signs with prices on them?

Sadly the Asian countries are killing off thousands of species, they don't give a care. (i do not include ALL Asian folks, I'm generalizing here. I know alot of them do care) They kill thousands of rare turtles & tortoises which infuriates me, they are NOT RENEWABLE resources unless it's a freaking red ear slider. They kill and eat ANYTHING that breathes. And some of these animals are not being consumed as dinner but freaking ground up into powder?!!? It's disgraceful, dishonorable, and whatever it is a specific ground up creature's purpose is - it is untrue.

[Ra]

Sad but true, I'm afraid, Buslady. My dad went to Korea and he heard that some families eat their dogs. I'm not to sure if that's true or not, but it just goes back to what you said.

It also reminds me about something happening close to Australia. Japanese whalers are coming into our waters and are whaling for "scientific research". The horrible thing is that they use the meat to give to primary school children (and high school, in some cases). It's...sickening, to say the least.

[Drtooth]

Originally Posted by TMNTerminator

B/w this and the gazillion of recently recalled Mattel toys hopefully people/governements will realize that all that "cheap, sustainable" work/products coming out of China needs a serious overhaul (which is completely unlikely)...

Heh Heh Heh.... Yeah, China the "Communist" nation that's more capitalistic than even the US. Man, do us all a favor and stop saying you're Commies when you're chompin up all the resorces.

But then again, they belive their biggest hero wasn't a disgusting monster who didn't do any of the stuff he has been said he did. The famous hike? Didn't happen. They also believe that when their government is hiding an epidemic of some horrible disease that it doesn't exist.

And they say the US are monsters.... hell, we just built Frankenstine here.

[Time Mistress]

This is just so sad, and truly depressing news, it makes me want to cry.