White river dolphin declared extinct after river search.After scouring scouring characterized by scour. scouring disease a colloquial name for secondary nutritional copper deficiency. China's Yangtze River Yangtze River Chinese Chang Jiang or Ch'ang Chiang River, China. Rising in the Tanggula Mountains in west-central China, it flows southeast before turning northeast and then generally east across south-central and east-central China to the East China for six weeks, a team of international experts declared the baiji, a rare white river dolphin Noun 1. river dolphin - any of several long-snouted usually freshwater dolphins of South America and southern Asia dolphin - any of various small toothed whales with a beaklike snout; larger than porpoises family Platanistidae, Platanistidae - river dolphins , "functionally extinct" in mid-December. August Pfluger, head of the Swiss-based baiji.org Foundation and a co-organizer of the expedition, told the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times, "We might have missed one or two animals but it won't survive in the wild. We are all incredibly sad." The baiji is the first large aquatic mammal to become extinct since the 1950s, when the over-hunted and over-fished Caribbean monk seal The Caribbean Monk Seal or West Indian Monk Seal (Monachus tropicalis), the only seal ever known to be native to the Caribbean sea and the Gulf of Mexico, is now considered extinct. disappeared. The team of 30 international scientists and crew used underwater microphones and high-tech optical equipment to search more than 1,600 kilometers of the Yangtze, the baiji's only known habitat. The nearly blind cetacean cetacean Any of the exclusively aquatic placental mammals constituting the order Cetacea. They are found in oceans worldwide and in some freshwater environments. Modern cetaceans are grouped in two suborders: about 70 species of toothed whales (Odontoceti) and 13 species of , which relies on its sonar abilities for navigation and foraging, survived some 20 million years as a species, but ultimately disappeared surprisingly fast, experts say. (As recently as the early 1980s, some 400 individuals were known to exist, and in 1997 there were 13 confirmed sightings.) "Some of us didn't want to believe that this would really happen," said search participant Randall Reeves, chairman of the Cetacean Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. ). "This particular species is the only living representative of a whole family of mammals. This is the end of a whole branch of evolution." The dolphin's extinction points to larger issues, experts say. "It's not only the loss of a beautiful animal, but an indication that the way its habitat is being managed, the way we're interacting with the natural environment of the river, is deeply flawed," observed Chris Williams, manager for river basin conservation at the World Wildlife Fund. The factors that led to the baiji's demise--including pollution, heavy ship traffic, and over-fishing--continue to threaten the world's five remaining species of freshwater dolphin, three of which live in Asia and all of which are critically endangered. "The situation of the finless porpoise is just like that of the baiji 20 years ago," warns Chinese hydro-biologist and expedition co-leader Wang Ding. "Their numbers are declining at an alarming rate. If we do not act soon they will become a second baiji." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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