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 ...
I've spent a bit of time in mainland China and this is true. Smaller rivers aren't brown or yellow, they're black. Air pollution is often so bad that when flying into Hong Kong, you can't even see the city. New buildings are covered in black streaks inside of 6 months. It's a disgusting filthy mess.
I understand they're pretty good with a little duck sauce and a Chenin Blanc.
Cheap crap which will cost us, much more in the future, in terms of having to increase our military spending to match their threat. Hopefully that's all it will cost us. These commie b*st*rds aren't our friends and have a motive behind all that cheap junk.
Many extinct animals will be brought back to life using cloning technology. The polar ice caps will never melt nor the sea levels rise nor another ice age happen because of climate management technology. No large asteroid will hit Earth again because of space technology.
The end is near! Because of technology Earth's wild days are almost over.
------If you read the article, the researchers didn't claim that there isn't a single white dolphin left in the Yangtze. What they claimed was that if there are any, then there are only a tiny handful, not enough to perpetuate the species. That means that if the species isn't in fact extinct, it will be very shortly.-------
If you READ myreplies I did not challenge the fact that there ARE a few of them that they have COUNTED. They could not tell me with any realistic sense of certainty that they counted them all except for the sli chance that they counted all of them in but ONE river on the face of earth. Again, I revert to my previous post in which I simply show we cant even count people and they do not live in the water and hide like this mammal does. I simply disagree with their final charge.
There are other examples of "Extinct....no, wait a minute" that you can point to.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/04/010420083332.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4667954
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=420
http://www.warwickhughes.com/species/
I am not calling these guys idiots...just that they are in in too much of a hurry in my opinion. And I do think they do this as a "Sky is falling" argument because the mammal is part of their agenda.
What I don't think you're getting is that this is a species unique to the Yangtze River, that has never been seen anywhere else. There are other three other species of river dolphin in the world, but they are different species (all are endangered).
This is abject Proof that that Communism is more of a threat to the environment than Capitalism these days... But you'll never see a greeny wienie crticize Beijing.
You cannot have industrialization and a clean environment in a communist system... its impossible. For Industrialization to exist along with a safe environment the industrialization must generate enough wealth to cover the clean up costs of its existence... and secondly that amount must be forced to be spent on the clean up effort.
The Earth already blows.
You got a point there!
The Eurosocialists are so enamored of the Kyoto Treaty (trying to cripple US industry and economic development) but they give China a pass and allow them to wipe out entire species with their pollution. Go figure!
“Adapt or die!”
Right. Screw them. If they can`t adapt to living in poison within a generation, they deserve to die. Survival of the fittest!
“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”
Screw them. If humans can`t adapt to breathing poisoned air, drinking polluted water, ingesting toxic levels of mercury and lead, we don`t deserve to live. Adapt or die. Survival of the fittest!
|
|
|||
Gods |
Note: this topic is from 12/18/2006. Thanks Alter Kaker. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.