Baiji - river dolphin

Hello!

For this post I want to bring to peoples attention the affects humans are having on their environment and the creatures that live and depend on it. Today I'm going to be talking about river dolphins, which are a cousin of the more well known ocean dolphins. There are about 4 species of freshwater dolphins, most of which are endangered because of overfishing and loss of habitat. 

I particularly want to talk about the Baiji - Yangtze River Dolphin. 

In December 2006 this dolphin was actually declared "functionally extinct". Scientists looked for 45 days and couldn't find a single specimen. They are thought to be extinct because of over fishing, damming of the river and sub aquatic sonar pollution that interferes with the sonar based methods the dolphins use to find food. There has been one alleged sighting which was filmed in 2007, it is said to be likely to be a Baiji, but experts still say that even if a couple of them survive, the species is ultimately doomed to extinction now. This is reported to be the first aquatic mammalian extinction for about 50 years. Only about 30% of the Baiji's bred each year with a 10-11 month pregnancy, with a 2 year interval between pregnancies. It takes around 5 years to reach sexual maturity, which means that the population is naturally low, so the sudden industrialization of China, the dolphins had very little chance to repopulate all that were lost. China recognized the precarious state of the river dolphin but it was too late. But they have still outlawed deliberate killing of Baiji, restricted the fishing in the river and established some nature reserves.

If people weren't so concerned with 'catching up' and making more money than they know what to do with then they would see how much they hurt the earth. Most of our world is made up of water, and we are polluting it really badly. Every fish that we overcatch or drive to extinction affects other creatures in its food chains. In the end we will be hurting ourselves.

Jaz