Yangtze River Dolphin “Likely Extinct”

The baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, hasn’t been spotted since 2006 and the last photo of one was taken in 2002. With one-tenth of the world’s population living in the Yangtze River basin, someone should have seen one if there were any to be seen. An international team of researchers spent six-weeks looking for the dolphin. Writing in Britain’s Royal Society Biology Letters, the team reports that the species is “likely extinct.” If so, it is the first global extinction of a megafauna species in 50 years, and quite sad.

The scientists did a survey of the Yangtze using two boats with acoustical equipment during November and December of 2006. They didn’t spot a single dolphin. They wrote, “While it is conceivable that a couple of surviving individuals were missed by the survey teams, our inability to detect any baiji despite this intensive search effort indicates that the prospect of finding and translocating them to a [reserve] has all but vanished.” They added, “the primary factor was probably unsustainable by-catch in local fisheries, which used rolling hooks, nets and electrofishing. Unlike most historical-era extinctions of large bodied animals, the baiji was the victim not of active persecution but incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts - primarily uncontrolled and unselective fishing.”

Marine biologist Barbara Taylor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service stated, “It’s a relic species, more than 20 million years old, that persisted through the most amazing kinds of changes in the planet. It’s been here longer than the Andes Mountains have been on Earth.” Lucy, the little hominid that appears to be the oldest human-like thing, is but 3.2 million years old.

From a hard-core Darwinist perspective, the passing of any species just comes up with the rations, part of the deal that is life. That includes homo sapiens, and that makes one a bit uncomfortable. What happened to the baiji, or Lipotes vexillifer, could happen to humanity as well. Almost inevitably, life goes on, but not necessarily with the first person singular along for the ride.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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