Much to the surprise and joy of conservationists, a freshwater dolphin that had been declared ‘extinct’ only days ago, has made an appearance in the Yangtze River! This is the Baiji Dolphin, also called the Chinese River Dolphin and affectionately referred to as the ‘Goddess of the Yangtze’.
Chinese state media has reported a sighting of this beautiful mammal at Xuba ferry in Tongling, Anhui Province on August 19. It was filmed with a digital camera and reviewed by Dr. Wang Kexiong, a researcher at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Wang was quoted as saying:
We are very glad to see Baiji still exist in the world.
The news came shortly after China’s leading scientist and expert on the Baiji, Wang Ding pronounced the specie’s extinction. His announcement came after a recently concluded 38-day search of the Yangtze for the Baiji by an international team of scientists. Expedition members noted that though a few Baiji may still exist in the murky waters of the Yangtze but because of the sparse population, they too would completely disappear within a generation.
August Pfluger, a noted Baiji expert and head of baiji.org said:
We have to accept the fact, that the Baiji is functionally extinct. It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world.
Dr Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London and a participant in the six-week search for baiji observed:
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 twenty million years ago. This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasizes that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet’. 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.
The Chinese government has said it will try to capture the remaining Baiji for a captive breeding program.
It is interesting to note that eventual disappearance of this dolphin is the result of pollution, over-fishing, boat traffic and obstructions like dams and not direct harvesting by humans.
The Baiji can be officially declared extinct by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/World Conservation Union (IUCN) only 50 years after its last recorded sighting. It will become the first large aquatic mammal to disappear since the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s.
Read: Mongabay
Image 1: Wikipedia
Image 2: Conservation Area
