Came across this article today, it's very sad news.
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.
Over fishing seems to be where most of the blame lies as toxic poisions are used, but there are likely to be other factors.
http://www.wdcs.org/dan/publishing.nsf/a...440032EE75
I saw one of the team being interviewed today talking about how it began to slowly dawned on the team as the mission went on that there were no dolphins there, when they had expected to fin at least some. They were absolutely devastated and still a little bit in shock.
I saw that on the news. It is so sad
I'm sure that it happens every day and it is not reported which is even sadder.
I saw one of the team being interviewed today talking about how it began to slowly dawned on the team as the mission went on that there were no dolphins there, when they had expected to fin at least some. They were absolutely devastated and still a little bit in shock.
I think it is so hard for us to realise exactly how polluted the environment is in China. It's actually a wonder that some of the animals and plants have survived at all.
Kingfisher
That's great news! I really hope it is the Yangtze that they discovered. The previous expedition seemed to think they had searched everwhere, hopefully this means that there are places where the dolphin lives that haven't been searched and that - fingers crossed - there is more of them.
It is brilliant news, I won't be completely convinced until the sighting has been confirmed though. Even though it looked like one, it was from quite a distance.