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Baiji River Dolphin May or May Not Be Extinct
ozmanjusri writes "Major news outlets are reporting that after 20 million years, Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) are now officially extinct. This is apparently actually old news; it was announced on a Baiji conservation website in December of last year. One outlet, though, is claiming they may not quite be completely dead yet. The same scientist that filed the report leading the the declaration of extinction is still hopeful: '"This is only one survey and...you can't have a sample in a survey, so you cannot say the baiji all is gone by the result of only one survey," he said. "For example, there is some side channels or some tributaries [where] we cannot go because of a restriction of navigation rules, and also we don't survey during the night-time so we may miss some animals in the Yangtze River." Professor Ding says based on anecdotal evidence, he remains confident the dolphins are still out there. "I'm pretty much sure there are a few of them left somewhere in the Yangtze River," he said. "I keep receiving reports from fishermen, they say they saw a couple of baiji somewhere, sometime."'"
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Are you purposely making fun of yourselves? Because to those of us who aren't in on the joke, which is most of us I guess, it looks like the site is run by a bunch of fucking dumbasses.
that there were 11 in captivity a few years back (they all died), they were trying to breed them in captivity. but they took tissue samples
please, please, please someone tell me the chinese have some of those tissue samples in liquid nitrogen. given some technological progress then, we might be able to bring the baiji back to life in a century or so
otherwise, the chinese deserve international sanctions for losing some of our shared world species diversity. it should be a un mandate with economic consequences that countries are responsible for the lifeblood of the species in their territories
not to mention the fact the chinese need to apologize to their ancestors for losing a part of their heritage. the baiji is a potent chinese symbol to the chinese themselves, and all of china is a little diminished today if the chinese actually neglected something so important to their national identity to the point of losing it permanently. china's history with environmental protection is deplorable. this takes it to the level of moral outrage
but nevermind this cranky westerner. i'll bet my life any random chinese person could better articulate the shame and anger at this horrible crime and tragedy, against china, by the chinese themselves
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Two-humped camels may or may not be extinct!
Walruses may or may not be extinct!
Jellyfish may or may not be extinct!
The common house cat may or may not be extinct!
Triceratops may or may not be extinct!
Comment of the year
we caused it. human beings are now the managers of this planet. we're powerful enough to destroy it. so for better or for worse, we have to talk about what we can do, and what we are doing. and if we do something wrong, like cause the extinction of culturally significant animal, then we need to be angry about that and see if we aren't doing the same to some other species
but you go ahead and talk about it's all so like disconnected man... nothing matters dude, yeah
if you don't fucking care, then shut the fuck up, and leave the conversation to people who do care
otherwise, if you open your mouth on the subject, then you do care
so make up your mind:
1. it doesn't matter. so prove it by shutting up
2. it does matter. so go ahead and talk... about how it matters
if you open your mouth again, when the words come out of your mouth, try not to be a moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
See, there's a big difference between mostly extinct, and all extinct. Now, mostly extinct: they're slightly not-extinct. All extinct, well, with all extinct, there's usually only one thing that you can do...
In all seriousness, with so few members of the species, they're effectively extinct, and that's what counts. There may be one or two, but there's zero chance they'll balloon into a viable population. Even if we save genetic samples, we're decades, if not centuries, away from being able to reproduce an entire species, if we can even do that. Even if we have tissue samples from twenty different dolphins, and reproduce them through some hypothetical cloning technique, I'm not convinced that's enough genetic diversity to sustain the species.
That may or may not be true.
What?
Extinction is pretty serious, regardless of whether that species matters to us or not. Congratulations, you've discovered a whole new category of "shallow"... worsened by the fact that apparently the main "cultural significance" of this animal is/was that it's tasty enough to fish into extinction. There's a Catch-22 for you.
I'm by no means a greasy-haired wild-eyed foaming-at-the-mouth green-nazi hippie douchebag, pretty nearly the opposite in fact, and I certainly don't buy into the "stewards of the planet" bullshit, but extinction that is pretty clearly caused by human activity -- worse yet, incidental and easily avoided activity -- still makes me queasy.
The point I'm trying to make is that extinction is so serious that whether the species was useful or important to us or not is completely irrelevant.
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