Monday 23 April 2007

Yangtze River dolphin extinct



An expedition to document the last remaining Chinese river dolphins returned after a six week survey which covered the entire known range of the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin. A team of international scientists using both visual and acoustic monitoring techniques made a full sweep of the area but failed to record one sighting, leading experts to believe that this species is now extinct.The extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin is the first recorded extinction of a cetacean species to be caused by human activity. The baiji represents a loss not just of a species but a whole family of animals which were endemic to the Yangtze River and evolved separately to other whales and dolphins for over 20 million years. The baiji was described as a ‘living fossil’, remaining as it had, unchanged for at least 3 million years since it first left the sea to swim into the Yangtze River.

We knew about this impending extinction and did nothing to stop it....If we are willing to allow a dolphin species to go extinct because of human activity...then what does the future hold for all other species? This is definitely a turning point that shows we might have lost control or ceased to care as much, for the management of the consequences of our current way of life...
Read more in WDCS.

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