Posted on 12/18/2006 9:06:19 AM PST by Alter Kaker
The first species to be erased from this planet’s great and ancient Order of Cetaceans in modern times is not one of the charismatic sea mammals that have long been the focus of conservation campaigns, like the sperm whale or bottlenose dolphin.
It appears to be the baiji, a white, nearly blind denizen of the Yangtze River in China.
On Wednesday, an expedition in search of any baiji, run by Chinese biologists and baiji.org, a Swiss foundation, ended empty-handed after six weeks of patrolling its onetime waters in the middle and lower stretches of the river, the baiji’s only known habitat.
The Yangtze, Asia’s longest waterway and thought to be akin to the Amazon long ago in its biological richness, now has a dominant species: the 400 million (and counting) people busily plying its waters and industrializing its banks.
For some 20 million years, the baiji, also called the white-flag dolphin, frequented the Yangtze’s sandy shallows, using sonar to catch fish in the silty flow.
In the last few decades, the dolphin’s numbers plunged as rapidly as the Chinese economy surged. The Yangtze’s sandy shallows, which the baiji frequented, have largely been dredged for shipping.
The baiji sought fish that have been netted or driven from the river by pollution. And its sonar may have been disrupted by the propeller noise from boats above. A 1997 survey counted 13 baiji in the river. None of the dolphins survive in captivity.
In a telephone interview from Wuhan, China, August Pfluger, the founder of baiji.org, said it was a shame that more attention had not shifted from the oceans’ more abundant cetaceans to the plight of those that live in rivers and are now essentially trapped, unable to escape human activity.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
99.9999% of all the species that have ever lived on the planet are extinct. And yet the planet somehow manages to survive.
Adapt or die!
This can't be true. Only Republicans and Bush kill animals.
"So long and thanks for all the fish!"
I've heard from travelers who have come back from China that the pollution and air quality are horrendous there, but the Chinese government doesn't care - full speed ahead with economic development.
China is a mess. I'm sure the ecofreaks will forget all about us now and go after China.
If their so smart, how come they taste so good on rye bread???
Like the dolphins in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", maybe these dolphins have supernaturally departed our sphere before the earth blows.
DON'T PANIC!!!!
I will bet we will see this mammal again. I often find it humerous when announcements like this are stated and then the animal all of a sudden shows up and in numbers. They are just about as credible as the global warming liars.
What makes you think they didn't??? ;)
Nah, they are hiding in Loch Ness with Nessie and friends.
Well,they eat anything there that walks or crawls.In this case,swims.
Awww. It looks so cute and delicious, harmless. Harmless.
Sad empty stomach frown :(
Apparently they were'nt good eatin' and you could'nt wear their skin. The surest way for a species to survice these days is to have some use for people.
Be tasty, be decorative, have some economic value, or be otherwise useful. The keys to survival for critters. Or people for that matter...
no surprise that the white flag dolphin didnt survive.
"how come they taste so good on rye bread???"
No one you see,is tastier than he!
They call him `Fripper', `Fripper',
faster than rightning . . .
I was going to say that this is impossible...there's no way to make this America's fault.
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