White River Dolphin Declared Extinct

[mrmoshe]

White river dolphin declared extinct

A TEAM of foreign and Chinese scientists have failed to find an endangered dolphin during a six-week trip on China's mighty Yangtze river, making it all but certain the rare animal is extinct.

"We have to accept the fact, that the baiji is extinct. We lost the race," said August Pfluger, co-head of the expedition and chief of Swiss-based baiji.org, an environmental group dedicated to saving the dolphins.

"It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world," admitted Mr Pfluger in a statement at the end of the six-week expedition.

Scientists estimate the baiji dolphin has lived on earth for up to 25 million years.

Mr Pfluger admitted that it was possible that one or two animals had been missed despite the use of high-tech optical and acoustic equipment, as well as a group of trained observers.

The baiji, believed to be among the world's oldest fresh-water mammals, made its home along the lower reaches of the China's environmentally degraded Yangtze River.

The cousin of the bottlenose dolphin had been critically endangered for years, a victim of devastating pollution, illegal fishing and expressway-like cargo traffic on the river.

Although the baiji had not been officially sighted in more than two years, scientists from China, Japan, Switzerland and the US had hoped that the 1750km search from Yichang to Shanghai would turn up the white dolphin.

The two expedition ships carried out the same procedures travelling and returning to Yichang, near China's massive Three Gorges dam.

Marine biologist Wang Ding, who has dedicated his life to the study of the baiji and another Yangtze dweller related to the dolphin, the finless porpoise, refused to give up hope.

"Although the expedition did not find any baiji, we still cannot merely rely on the expedition to conclude that the baiji is extinct," said the vice director of the hydrobiology institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Scientific data indicates that more than 90 per cent of baiji deaths were caused by human encroachment.

[R_Zee]

what a pitty...

truely sad