(CN) Baiji functionally extinct

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Baiji " functionally extinct " - research

AP

2006-12-13

 

BEIJINg - An international expedition to search for a rare Chinese river dolphin

has ended without a single sighting, and researchers said Wednesday that the

aquatic mammal is facing imminent extinction.

 

A few of the white Yangtze River dolphins, known as baiji, may still exist in

the massive waterway that cuts through eastern China, but their numbers are

insufficient to stave off extinction, said August Pfluger, the Swiss co-leader

of the expedition.

 

" We have to accept the fact that the Baiji is functionally extinct. We lost the

race, " Pfluger said in a statement released by the expedition. " It is a tragedy,

a loss not only for China, but for the entire world. We are all incredibly sad. "

 

The baiji, shy and nearly blind, is one of the world's oldest dolphin species,

dating back some 20 million years. Scientists believe their disappearance would

be the first instance of a large aquatic mammal being driven to extinction since

hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal circa 1952.

 

Overfishing and shipping traffic, whose engines interfere with the sonar the

baiji uses to navigate and feed, are likely the main reasons for the mammal's

declining numbers, Pfluger said. Though the Yangtze is polluted, water samples

taken by the expedition every 50 kilometers (30 miles) did not show high

concentrations of toxic substances, the statement said.

 

For nearly six weeks, Pfluger's team of 30 scientists scoured a heavily

trafficked 1,700-kilometer (1,000-mile) stretch of the Yangtze, where the baiji

once thrived. The expedition's two boats, equipped with high-tech binoculars and

underwater microphones, trailed each other an hour apart without radio contact

so that a sighting by one vessel would not prejudice the other.

 

Around 400 baiji were believed to be living in the Yangtze in the 1980s. The

last full-fledged search, in 1997, yielded 13 confirmed sightings, and a

fisherman claimed to have seen a baiji in 2004, Pfluger said in an earlier

interview.

 

At least 20 to 25 baiji would now be needed to give the species a chance to

survive, the group's statement said citing Wang Ding, a hydrobiologist and

China's foremost campaigner for the baiji.

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/13/content_758268.htm

==========================

Earlier article..

 

On the trail of the Yangtze's lost dolphin

 

An expedition is searching China's great river for any trace of the baiji but it

may be too late

See the slideshow

 

Jonathan Watts on the Yangtze

Friday November 24, 2006

The Guardian

 

Murky water, hazy sky and dull brown riverbanks. Strained eyes peering into the

mist. Ears tuned electronically into the depths. And with each hour, each day

that passes, a nagging question that grows louder: is this how a species ends

after 20m years on earth?

 

When they write the environmental history of early 21st-century China, the

freshwater dolphin expedition now plying the Yangtze river may be seen as man's

farewell to an animal it once worshipped. A team of the world's leading marine

biologists is making a last-gasp search for the baiji, a dolphin that was

revered as the goddess of Asia's mightiest river but is now probably the

planet's most endangered mammal.

 

Environmentalists warn that more and more species are being threatened in China,

where forests can be home to more varieties of life than all of the United

States and Canada combined.

The baiji expedition started out as a typically modern-day mission: a cascade of

beer from the brewery sponsoring the launch, technical support from

international research institutes and a shipfull of good intentions and high

hopes. But more than halfway through the six-week expedition, the mood is

grimmer as the participants contemplate the possibility that man may have killed

off its first species of dolphin.

 

Spotters on the two boats have yet to glimpse a pale dorsal fin or hear the

telltale trace of a sonar whistle, but the organisers refuse to give up. " The

likelihood of the baiji being extinct in five to 10 years is 90% or more, but we

must have hope and do everything possible, " says August Pfluger, head of

baiji.org, a Swiss-based group devoted to saving whales and dolphins.

 

Few people outside China have heard of the baiji, a light grey, long-snouted

river dolphin that relies on sonar rather than its eyes to navigate through the

murky Yangtze water. But even more than the panda, the demise of this mammal

illustrates the sacrifices that the world's most populous country has made in

its race to grow richer.

 

In the 1950s, there were thousands of baiji in the Yangtze. By 1994, the number

fell below 100. This year, there has only been one, unconfirmed, sighting.

 

On board the Kekao-1 survey boat, it is not hard to see reasons for the decline.

As commerce booms, the Yangtze has grown thick with container ships, coal barges

and speed boats, whose hulls and propellers can run down or tear up the

dolphins. Others have been blown up by bombs, electrocuted or snarled on 1,000

metre-long lines of hooks set by local fisherman who use unorthodox and illegal

methods to boost catches.

 

Pollution is fouling their habitat. Near Huaneng, the acrid smoke billowing out

of a paper factory and coal-fired power plant is so pungent that the crew

grimace more than half a mile away. The factory discharges an unceasing torrent

of filthy water directly into the river.

 

The completion of the Three Gorges dam has not helped. Although it is far

upriver, the giant barrier has worsened a decline of the smaller fish on which

the baiji feed and the shrinkage of the sand bars around which they once played.

 

Père David's deer

 

Scientists hope to save the species by capturing and moving specimens to a

nature reserve - the 13 mile-long oxbow lake at Tian'ezhou - where they will be

protected from river traffic and fishing.

 

Even with just a couple of dozen baiji, the team believe the population could

recover. They point to Tian'ezhou's herd of several hundred Père David's deer.

The last 18 deer, which is indigenous to China, were taken to Woburn Abbey in

the late 19th century and successfully bred and reintroduced to China.

 

But so far, not one baiji has been found. With hope fading, the missing dolphin

hunt threatens to turn into a murder investigation, a whodunnit for an entire

species.

 

Scanning the water with binoculars, Samuel Turvey, of the Zoological Society of

London, said the baiji is a mammal family that diverged 20m years ago from other

ancient groups. " Its loss would be a major blow to biological diversity. This

isn't a twig - it is a branch on the tree of life. To lose it would be so

depressing. Yet nothing has been done for 30 years. Why does nobody pay

attention to a species until there are almost none left? "

 

China's leading baiji expert, Wang Ding, has monitored the river for more than

20 years and acknowledges that action should have come earlier. " When we started

we could be certain of seeing Baiji on every trip. It would have been better if

we had tried to conserve them then but at the time China was very poor and the

government was focused only on economic development. People did not care about

the environment at all. "

 

The strain of supporting 400 million people - one in 20 of the world's

population - is taking its toll on a river that had been one the most

biologically diverse regions in the world. Wang estimates that fish stocks have

halved in 10 years. Many of its endemic species are near extinction, including

the Chinese alligator, arguably the world's most endangered reptile; the Yangtze

giant salamander, one of the world's largest amphibians; and two sturgeon

species.

 

The list is growing. Wang says China will add the finless porpoise - another

Yangtze cetacean - to the endangered list this year. In less than a decade, the

porpoise population has shrunk by two-thirds to about 1,000. Spotters on the

expedition saw only 30, down from about 100 six months before. Wang is

increasingly despondent over their fate.

 

Scientists warn that the river is losing its capacity to support life, which

will ultimately affect humans. " The baiji is like a canary in a coalmine, " says

Zhang Xiangfeng, of the Institute of Hydrobiology. " Since the 1990s, the water

in the lakes near the Yangtze has become so polluted that we can't drink from

them. Since I entered the institute 23 years ago, there are more and more ships

and less and less animals. The river looks like a highway. "

 

China's economic development and environmental destruction are taking place on a

bigger scale and faster than ever before. Jim Harkness, the former

representative of the WWF in Beijing, assumes the baiji are already extinct.

" The ecosystems that have suffered the worst damage in China are freshwater. "

 

Public awareness

 

Humanity, he warned, is driving animals to extinction many times faster than

ever before. And China threatens to accelerate the trend because it has so much

to lose. Harkness says the forests of Sichuan province contain more species than

in all of North America.

 

" The problem in China is that it is one of the globe's most important centres of

biodiversity, yet it has a huge population. Economic growth and environmental

degradation are both proceeding at an unprecedented rate. And because of the

political situation, it is not like people can stand up for a species of moss

that is being destroyed by mining. "

 

However, public and state awareness about the need for conservation is growing.

China has more than 2,000 nature reserves. " China has made an effort to do more

but certainly economic development - which leads to changing eating habits, more

dams and more roads - is a threat to many species, " says Xie Yan, of the

Wildlife Conservation Society, which will soon assess how species numbers have

changed in recent years. " The biodiversity of China will become an increasingly

important topic for people all over the world. "

 

But economics continues to take priority. As a member of the Yangtze management

commission, Wang has proposed a fishing ban, but so far there is only a

temporary halt during spawning.

 

Whether this is too little, too late for the baiji will not be conclusively

determined by the expedition. But if the most advanced survey of the river yet

comes up blank, the baiji's prospects are grim. " If we cannot find any baiji,

the message to society will be that there is no hope for them, " says Wang.

 

[Photo]

The lonely dolphin … Qi Qi, who was found injured in the Yangtze in 1980 and

lived in a Wuhan aquarium until she died in 2002. An expedition is searching for

others of her kind but not one has been sighted. Photograph: AFP

 

[slideshow]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/slideshow/page/0,,1955482,00.html

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/

0,,1955884,00.html

-----------------------

baiji.org foundation:

 

The baiji.org Foundation: Networking Expertise for the Conservation of

Freshwater Biodiversity

 

The baiji.org foundation is a small network of specialists including scientists

and freshwater conservation experts, staff at the Institute of Hydrobiology

(IHB) in Wuhan, China, and project management and communications specialists.

 

The foundation unites know-how in research, conservation and

consciousness-raising. Together with the IHB in Wuhan, the foundation promotes

the conservation of Yangtze freshwater dolphins and the habitats in which they

live as part of a greater mission to conserve the biodiversity of the entire

Yangtze basin.

 

baiji.org's first priority is to provide a platform for a new common strategic

vision on the conservation of the baiji and the Yangtze finless porpoise. The

foundation helps coordinate and assist fundraising efforts to support the

planning, preparation and actual implementation of effective small-scale

projects.

 

baiji.org Foundation Objectives:

 

-Integrate international expertise and organizational structures, in cooperation

with other stakeholders and conservation organizations.

-Develop a fundraising and project platform and promote the baiji issue on a

larger scale.

-Raise awareness of freshwater dolphins and educate people about the need to

address the continuing threats to their welfare and survival.

-Prevent the extinction of endangered species and promote the recovery of all

freshwater dolphin populations.

-Secure adequate protection for and maintain the health of all freshwater

dolphin habitats.

-Promote worldwide interest in freshwater dolphins and freshwater biodiversity.

 

The baiji.org foundation was set up in mid-2004 by a small group of committed

Swiss individuals organized by August Pfluger (economist, Zurich) with the

support of Leigh Barrett (media specialist, UK) and scientists in the IUCN/ SSC

Cetacean Specialist Group.

........................

Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition 2006

 

http://baiji.org/expeditions/1/overview.html