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White Dolphin Functionally Extict
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in nearly fifty years another mammal, specifically an aquatic mammal, has gone extinct. In this case, it was the white dolphin, also known as the Baiji, which used to live in the Yangtze River in China. The dolphin had been known to exist for the last 20 million years."
No, "near" or "almost" implies that there is still a chance to bring them back. In this case, the gene pool is aparently too small to do that. That's what "functionally extinct" means.
Delay is preferable to error. (Thomas Jefferson)
According to TFA, it wasn't pollution, but rather overfishing and shipping traffic that did them in.
Except that the "+1" mammal from New Zealand in that equation has been dead for 16 million years.
English is not this
Who cares? I didn't weep when I heard the dinosaurs went extinct, why weep now? Let's look a this objectively, we as humans are animals, we change our environment just as every creature changes it's environment. Why is the natural maximum alcohol content of wine about 18%? It's because the microbes the create the alcohol poison themselves. Do birds build nests and rearrange their environment? Yes. Do creatures bore holes into the ground and live in animal made caves? Yes. Do birds shit everywhere including in the drinking water? Yes. Just because we're larger, supposedly more intelligent, and changing the face of the earth faster than possibly any other creature to previously exist, does not in any way make us less a part of nature. Everything we do is natural, because it is natural to trya nd survive. When survival no longer becomes viable WE will die, and the other creatures will prosper. Sure, we lose creatures along the way that couldn't hack the new environment, but this is necessary so that new species can arise and take their place and vie for their shot at dominance. The stupidity of trying to save species is akin to trying to make every last human live forever... it's pointless, once th eearth fills up with humans there will be no room for new humans. No creature, not we humans, and not the cute litle white dolphins, have a right to eternal existence. Just imagine what might come after us after we revert the planet back to a primordial goo... a whole host of new stuff... that will evolve, and evolve, and then a sentient species will show up, and evolve a bit more, then rape the world for all it's worth... unless, maybe, it's smarter than humans... and we all know humans are just glorified monkeys.
Well, if it came down to it, yeah. That would happen. It would mean _many_ generations of bad blood, but eventually the population could spread, diversify, and get back up to a better selection pool of genes. A species can recover from such a catastrophe (it's theorized to have happened with cheetahs), but it's a long, difficult process that may just as easily end up with extinction.
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
This is the intent of the http://www.all-species.org/ ALL Species Foundation.
, 00.html/ about them has some interesting information.
Their mission is to "The ALL Species Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years - a human generation."
A Wired article http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50942
I've just contacted the associate professor in cetacean research at my local university, and asked specifically what the cause of the dolphin's extinction is. Apparently, the extinction is a combination of "pollution from industry, habitat loss due to damming, and incidental catch [i.e. fishing]". His words, not mine. I'd hope that he has a bit more knowledge about the issue than the journalists at CNN do.
From their website:
(Emphasis mine.)
Here is some information on the staff at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.
Not to discount your source, but I'd hope that they have a bit more knowledge about the issue than your associate professor.
And please, /.ers, stop knee-jerking. That's not what geeks do.
The late Douglas Adams (along with Mark Carwardine) wrote a book titled Last Chance to See about a number of animals on the brink of extinction. The chapter Blind Panic was all about the baiji dolphin's predicament. Practically blind, the baiji dolphin relied sonar to navigate the Yangtze river - the trouble is that the Yangtze is really busy and hence noisy and polluted. The baiji didn't stand a chance, though from the book it seemed that the Chinese did put a lot of effort into trying to save them.
Scott
Yeah, it's not like we've killed off so many species that scientists refer to the modern era as the Holocene Extinction Event, or the Sixth Extinction; or are claiming that this is the fastest mass extinction in Earth's history, giant meteors included. No, there's hardly any extinction going on.
Please perform at least a cursory Google search before making broad scientific claims.
Scratch a hunter and you'll uncover an environmentalist.
See, historically it's been hunters that have been the first to move to protect habitats and watersheds essential to wildlife. They see firsthand the consequences when these are lost. You can call it enlightened self interest, but it's really more than that. It's a drive to preserve the legacy of the outdoors, to keep things pristine and healthy for future generations to enjoy. That's the very thing that moved Teddy Roosevelt (and avid hunter and sportsman) to create the National Parks system.
Besides that, the whole ethos of skilled hunting isn't about achieving the kill. It is about respecting the animals one takes. That's a lot more than can be said about a minimum-wage slaughterhouse worker whacking cattle on the abattoir.