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White Dolphin Functionally Extict

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the gone-the-way-of-the-dodo dept.

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."

20 of 868 comments (clear)

  1. Oops! by justkarl · · Score: 5, Funny

    Makes me feel bad about the tuna sandwiches I had for dinner last night.

    1. Re:Oops! by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

      Rest assured that all your future tuna sandwiches will be White Dolphin free.

    2. Re:Oops! by J.R.+Random · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Makes me feel bad about the tuna sandwiches I had for dinner last night.

      While many ocean dolphins do get killed by tuna nets, the species that went extinct was a river dolphin, unique to the Yangtze. They were done in by the increasing pollution of that river. So instead of feeling bad about the tuna sandwiches you had you should feel bad about the cheap DVD player you bought -- not only did the people who put it together get paid slave wages, but the company that employed them didn't "waste" any money on pollution control.

    3. Re:Oops! by Knara · · Score: 5, Informative

      According to TFA, it wasn't pollution, but rather overfishing and shipping traffic that did them in.

    4. Re:Oops! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So if we're going to feel bad about something, feel bad that some Chinese kid had food to eat and could go places.

    5. Re:Oops! by Nasajin · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    6. Re:Oops! by siufish · · Score: 5, Informative

      From their website:

      The decline of the Baiji and the critical situation of the finless porpoise appears to not be directly influenced by the water quality of the Yangtze. Within the framework of the Expedition, scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology did simultaneously investigate the chemical composition of the Yangtze river water and its particulate load. Scientists took both water and sediment samples from 30 different locations all along 1750 kilometers of the river. Although the Yangtze does have an altogether high degree of pollutant build-up, at this time, as Beat Mueller from Eawag pointed out, there are no indications of toxic pollutants in high concentrations.

      (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.

    7. Re:Oops! by operagost · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sheesh, 20 million years of succesful living as a species, and now you're dead because of someone who lives for, say, 60 years.
      Wow, isn't that a heavily weighted argument. Can't really make a single individual's lifespan stand against the entire existence of a species. For your next act, I hope you will advocate razing all steel-framed buildings in favor of adobe huts because steel buildings last, say, 60 years, while adobe huts have been build for thousands.
      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  2. Overloards by pseudorand · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, morn the loss of our potential aquatic overlords.

  3. Idiots. by Fayn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hindsight in 20-20 indeed. Maybe now governments will get the idea that if you want to protect a species, you actually have to protect it. Just sitting arond and holding press conferences and askind advisors endlessly will not solve a single thing. This crap needs to change, and soon.

    --
    .-.
  4. Re:I can only say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't kid yourself. If a white dolphin ever got the chance he'd eat you and everyone you care about.

  5. '60s TV reference alert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    They called him Fripper, Fripper ...

  6. Re:Why do we care all that much? by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because this extinction can be directly traced to human interference. Because the animal was part of an ecosystem that has now been diminished, and human interference therefore harmed the entire ecosystem. Because diminished ecosystems are less resistant to new predators and diseases. Because diminished ecosystems have a point of no return at which they completely collapse, even if other species are still present.

    Most importantly though, because the planet just got a little less interesting and wondrous.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  7. Re:Why do we care all that much? by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 5, Funny
    More than 995% of all zoological diversity, in total, ever, is extinct. Why do we need to sweat it


    Because maybe one of those extinct species was good at statistics.
    --
    Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
  8. Cataloguing DNA for future use by ReverendLoki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My question is, is anyone preserving DNA samples from the existing specimens? Maybe another 20 years it will be feasible to produce clones of the species. I'm not saying try and repopulate the species into the wild, though that could be an option, but rather perhaps just for preservation in a zoo or similar habitat. Whether or not this actually happens in the future, we'd need to start thinking about gathering and preserving the DNA samples now. If we hurry, it may not even be too late to come up with 20 to 25 unique sets to match the number the article suggests is the minimum number of dolphins needed to even hope for a resurgence of the species.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  9. Re:Why do we care all that much? by Zaatxe · · Score: 5, Funny

    "First they came for the white dolphin, but I didn't say a word because I'm not a white dolphin..."

    --
    So say we all
  10. Re:I can only say... by GeckoX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    20 Million Years.

    Repeat after me: Twenty Million Years

    Yeah, they just happened to have been naturally selected for extinction now, nevermind that we KNOW exactly what the cause of their decline has been, and that we KNOW it is because of OUR artificial impact on their natural environment.

    You couldn't have picked a worse place or time to pull that steaming pile of shit out.

    --
    No Comment.
  11. Very skilled idiots. by jd · · Score: 5, Insightful
    • The dolphin was officially down to 6 or less a decade ago.
    • It was featured in Douglas Adams' "Last Chance To See" as critically endangered sometime before that.
    • The two that the Chinese had in captivity died due to neglect and the use of exactly the kind of netting that have been killing them along the river for containment.
    • The problem with fishing was not limited to overfishing - there are plenty of fish upriver of the dam. The problem was that the Chinese saw no point in allowing the dolphins and the fish to be in the same stretch of river.
    • The Chinese could - very easily - have moved the dolphins upriver of the dam, getting them out of the way of boats, pollution, etc. The decision not to do so had nothing to do with capability, money, resources, fish, pollution, or any other such problem. The decision not to was based on apathy.
    • The environmentalists were equally capable of moving the dolphins. The politicians could hardly have stopped them - even if they wanted to. And why would they have wanted to? It would have gotten rid of the problem, would have allowed them to claim credit if the solution worked, and would have cost them nothing if it had failed.
    • Environmentalists were equally capable of relocating the dolphins. There's so much boat traffic and so much illegal fishing, who would have noticed the Rainbow Warrior flooding a compartment and stuffing a few dolphins in it? The dolphins need a fresh water river and there's not exactly a world shortage of those.
    • And the marine parks around the world? They could have charged a small fortune to exhibit a river dolphin, run a captive breeding program and got their name in lights for saving an entire species. So what do they do? Uh.... Nothing?
    • Gene banks and cloning groups? Silent. No efforts on saving the genetic data for later generations, no efforts by geneticists to produce a clone, not even an effort to map the genes to see what made them what they were. (Wheat you can find next year. Humans will be around for a loong time. But the plants and animals that you get one chance at and that's it?)


    I have to give credit where credit is due, though. The stupidity of all the organizations - from Greenpeace to the Chinese Government - that could have made a difference but chose not to make a difference that mattered is not the mundane stupidity we see in everyday life. This is a highly trained, highly refined breed of stupidity that only the truly gifted hand-wringer could develop.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  12. Well that sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's the dolphin bits that give tuna that great taste.

  13. Douglas Adams wrote about the baiji dolphin by monkeybrain · · Score: 5, Informative

    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