iChinese River Dolphin
Conservation status
Critically endangered (CR), possibly extinct
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Subclass: Eutheria Order: Cetacea Suborder: Odontoceti Superfamily: Platanistoidea Family: Lipotidae Genus: Lipotes Species: L. vexillifer
Binomial name
Lipotes vexillifer Miller, 1918
Natural range of Lipotes vexillifer

The Chinese River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China. Other names include Baiji (白鱀豚 Pinyin: báijìtún), Yangtze River Dolphin, Beiji, Pai-chi (Wade-Giles), Whitefin Dolphin and Yangtze Dolphin. Image File history File links Lipotes_vexillifer. ... The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species continuing to survive. ... An endangered species is a species whose population is so small that it is in danger of becoming extinct. ... Scientific classification or biological classification is how biologists group and categorize extinct and living species of organisms. ... Phyla Subregnum Parazoa Porifera Subregnum Eumetazoa Placozoa Orthonectida Rhombozoa Radiata (unranked) Ctenophora Cnidaria Bilateria (unranked) Acoelomorpha Myxozoa Superphylum Deuterostomia Chordata Hemichordata Echinodermata Chaetognatha Xenoturbellida Superphylum Ecdysozoa Kinorhyncha Loricifera Priapulida Nematoda Nematomorpha Onychophora Tardigrada Arthropoda Superphylum Platyzoa Platyhelminthes Gastrotricha Rotifera Acanthocephala Gnathostomulida Micrognathozoa Cycliophora Superphylum Lophotrochozoa Sipuncula Nemertea Phoronida Bryozoa Entoprocta... {{{subdivision_ranks}}} See below Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates. ... Orders Multituberculata (extinct) Palaeoryctoides (extinct) Triconodonta (extinct) Subclass Australosphenida Ausktribosphenida Monotremata Subclass Eutheria (excludes extinct ancestors) Afrosoricida Anagaloidea (extinct) Arctostylopida (extinct) Artiodactyla Carnivora Cetacea Chiroptera Cimolesta (extinct) Cingulata Creodonta (extinct) Condylarthra (extinct) Dermoptera Desmostylia (extinct) Dinocerata (extinct) Embrithopoda (extinct) Hyracoidea Insectivora Lagomorpha Leptictida (extinct) Litopterna (extinct) Macroscelidea Mesonychia (extinct) Notoungulata... Eutheria is a taxon (specifically, an infraclass) nearly synonymous with Placentalia, containing the placental mammals and the nearest ancestors of placental mammals (which are known only from the fossil record). ... Suborders Mysticeti Odontoceti Archaeoceti (extinct) (see text for families) The order Cetacea includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. ... Families See text The toothed whales (systematic name Odontoceti) form a suborder of the cetaceans. ... Families See text River dolphins are four species of dolphin which reside in freshwater rivers and estuarys. ... In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal method of naming species. ... Gerrit Smith Miller, Jr. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... , (C) User:Pcb21, 2004, User:Vardion 2003. ... Families See text River dolphins are four species of dolphin which reside in freshwater rivers and estuarys. ... Afternoon light on the jagged grey mountains rising from the Yangtze River gorge The Yangtze River or Chang Jiang (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng)   is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world after the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in... Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell and yin means sound. The most common variant of pinyin in use is called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... Wade-Giles, sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a Romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration) system for the Chinese language based on Mandarin. ...

Although the dolphin was nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze" (長江女神) in China and efforts were made to conserve the species, the population declined drastically in recent decades. It was declared "functionally extinct" after an expedition in late 2006 failed to find any in the river.^[1] Functional extinction is the extinction of a species or other taxon, as measured by one of the following: it disappears from the fossil record, or historic reports of its existence cease[1] the population is reduced to an extent that it no longer plays a significant role in ecosystem function... Two of the expedition boats on the Yangtze The Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition 2006 was a six-week search expedition undertaken in November and December 2006 in the city of Wuhan in central China in an attempt to locate continued proof of the existence of the endangered Baiji Yangtze Dolphin. ...

Early history

Fossil records indicate that the dolphins may have migrated from the Pacific Ocean to the Yangtze River 20 million years ago. It was one of four species of dolphins known to have made fresh water their exclusive habitat. The other three species, including the Boto and the La Plata Dolphin, have survived in the Ganges and Indus rivers on the Indian subcontinent, Rio de la Plata, and the Amazon in South America. Genera See article below. ... For the village on the Isle of Wight, see Freshwater, Isle of Wight. ... Families See text River dolphins are four species of dolphin which reside in freshwater rivers and estuarys. ... Binomial name Inia geoffrensis Blainville, 1817 Boto range The Boto, Amazon River Dolphin or Pink River Dolphin[1] (Inia geoffrensis) is a freshwater or river dolphin. ... Binomial name Pontoporia blainvillei Gervais & dOrbigny, 1844 La Plata Dolphin range The La Plata Dolphin (Pontoporia blainvillei) is found in coastal Atlantic waters of southeastern South America. ... Early morning on the Ganges The River Ganges (Ganga in Indian languages) (Devanagiri गंगा) is a major river in northern India. ... The Indus is a river; the Indus River. ... The term Rio de la Plata may refer to the following: Rio de la Plata, a river in the U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico River Plate, an Estuary in South America This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... A satellite image of the mouth of the Amazon River, looking south The Amazon River or River Amazon (Spanish: ; Portuguese: ) of South America is the most voluminous river on earth, having a greater total flow than the next six largest rivers combined. ...

It is estimated that there were 5,000 Chinese River Dolphins when they were described in the ancient dictionary Erya circa 3rd century BC. A traditional Chinese story describes the Chinese River Dolphin as the reincarnation of a princess who had been drowned by her family after refusing to marry a man she did not love. Regarded as a symbol of peace and prosperity, the dolphin was nicknamed the "Goddess of the Yangtze." The Erya (爾雅) is a Chinese dictionary from before the first century. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 3rd century BC started on January 1, 300 BC and ended on December 31, 201 BC. // Events The Pyramid of the Moon, one of several monuments built in Teotihuacán Teotihuacán, Mexico begun The first two Punic Wars between Carthage...

Natural range

The baiji used to populate the Yangtze, but its range shrank through the years due to human encroachment. Shortly before being declared extinct, it was limited to the section of China's main waterway between Dongting Lake and Dongling.

Physical description

Mature baijis are 2.0~2.5m long, the longest measured at 2.7m. They weigh 200~250kg. Their breathing sounds like "chi-chi". They live for 30 to 40 years, with sexual maturity at 3-5 years. They breed year-round, with the warmer season (April-September) the height of their activity. Gestation period is 10-11 months, one calf at a time. The calf measure around 1m at birth and emerges tail first. It is nursed for 8-20 months.[1]

When escaping from danger, the baiji could reach 60 km/h, but usually stayed within 10 to 15 km/h. Its vision and hearing abilities had severely degenerated through the millennia, and it relied mainly on sonar for navigation. Kilometre per hour (American spelling: kilometer per hour) is a unit of both speed (scalar) and velocity (vector). ...

Decline of the species

In the 1950s, the population was estimated at 6,000 animals,^[2] but declined rapidly over the subsequent five decades. Now the most endangered cetacean in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records,^[1] the baiji was last sighted in September 2004. The Guinness Book of Records (or in recent editions Guinness World Records, and in previous US editions Guinness Book of World Records) is a book published annually, containing an internationally recognized collection of superlatives: both in terms of human achievement and the extrema of the natural world. ... Look up September in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Causes of decline

The World Conservation Union notes that China's Great Leap Forward greatly reduced the number of baijis. The animal was persecuted for its flesh and skin, and it quickly became scarce. ^[3] The World Conservation Union or International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. ... The Great Leap Forward (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Dàyuèjìn) of the Peoples Republic of China was an economic and social plan to use Chinas vast population to rapidly transform mainland China from a primarily agrarian economy dominated by peasant farmers into a modern, industrialized...

As China developed economically, pressure on the river dolphin grew significantly. Industrial and residential waste flowed into the Yangtze. The riverbed was dredged and reinforced with concrete in many locations. Ship traffic multiplied, the size of the boats grew, and fishermen employed wider and more lethal nets. Noise pollution made the nearly blind animal prone to collisions with propellers. Stocks of the dolphin's prey had declined drastically in recent decades as well, with some fish populations declining to one thousandth of their pre-industrial levels.^[4]

In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of the species' deaths were attributed to entanglement in fishing gear. By the early 2000s, electric fishing was considered "the most important and immediate direct threat to the baiji's survival."^[3] Though outlawed, the destructive fishing technique is widely practiced throughout China. The building of the Three Gorges Dam further reduced the dolphin's habitat and facilitated an increase in ship traffic. In fisheries science, by-catch refers to species caught in a fishery intended to target another species, as well as reproductively_immature juveniles of the target species. ... Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. ... Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish by hooking, trapping, or gathering animals not classifiable as insects which breathe in water or pass their lives in water. ... Three Gorges Dam, downstream side, 26 July 2004 Three Gorges Dam, upstream side, 26 July 2004 The Three Gorges Dam (Simplified Chinese: 长江三峡工开发, Traditional Chinese: 長江三峽工開發, Hanyu pinyin: Chángjiāng Sānxiá Gōng Kāifā) spans the Yangtze River at Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei province, China. ...

Timeline

• circa 3rd century BC: population estimated at 5,000 animals
• 1950s: population was estimated at 6,000 animals
• 1958-1962: The Great Leap Forward denounces the animal's traditional venerated status
• 1979: The People's Republic of China declares the Chinese River Dolphin endangered
• 1983: National law declares hunting the Chinese River Dolphin illegal
• 1984: The plight of the baiji draws headlines in China^[5]
• 1986: Population estimated to be 300
• 1989: Gezhouba Dam complete
• 1990: Population estimated to be 200
• 1994: Construction of the Three Gorges Dam begins
• 1996: IUCN lists the species as critically endangered
• 1997: Population estimated to be less than 50 (23 found in survey)
• 1998: 7 found in survey
• 2003: Three Gorges Dam begins filling reservoir
• 2004: Last known sighting, a stranded dead dolphin
• 2006: None found in survey, declared "with all probability extinct"

The 1950s was the decade spanning from the 1st of January, 1950 to the 31st December, 1959. ... 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... The Great Leap Forward (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Dàyuèjìn) of the Peoples Republic of China was an economic and social plan to use Chinas vast population to rapidly transform mainland China from a primarily agrarian economy dominated by peasant farmers into a modern, industrialized... This page refers to the year 1979. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Cable stayed bridge over the Chang Jiang at the downstream approach to the Gezhouba Dam locks. ... This article is about the year. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... Three Gorges Dam, downstream side, 26 July 2004 Three Gorges Dam, upstream side, 26 July 2004 The Three Gorges Dam (Simplified Chinese: 长江三峡工开发, Traditional Chinese: 長江三峽工開發, Hanyu pinyin: Chángjiāng Sānxiá Gōng Kāifā) spans the Yangtze River at Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei province, China. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... An endangered species is a species whose population is so small that it is in danger of becoming extinct. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Three Gorges Dam, downstream side, 26 July 2004 Three Gorges Dam, upstream side, 26 July 2004 The Three Gorges Dam (Simplified Chinese: 长江三峡工开发, Traditional Chinese: 長江三峽工開發, Hanyu pinyin: Chángjiāng Sānxiá Gōng Kāifā) spans the Yangtze River at Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei province, China. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Conservation efforts

Soon after it decided to modernize, China recognized the precarious state of the river dolphin. The government made deliberate killing illegal, placed some restrictions on fishing, and established nature preserves.

In 1978, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established the Freshwater Dolphin Research Centre (淡水海豚研究中心) as a branch of the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology. In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to capture dolphins and relocate them to a reserve. The strategy was to set up a breeding program, allow the species' numbers to recover, improve conditions in the Yangtze, and then reintroduce the species. However, capturing the rare, quick dolphins proved to be difficult, and no captured dolphins survived more than a few months.^[3] The Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese: 中国科学院; pinyin: Zhōngguó KÄ“xuéyuàn), formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with Taiwans Academia Sinica currently headquartered in Taipei which shares the same root), is the national academy for the natural sciences of the Peoples Republic of... Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology (武汉水生生物研究所) is located in Wuhan of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

The first Chinese aquatic species protection organisation, the Baiji Dolphin Conservation Foundation of Wuhan (武汉白鱀豚保护基金), was founded in December 1996. It has raised 1,383,924.35 CNY (about 100,000 USD) and used the funds for in vitro cell preservation and to maintain the Chinese River Dolphin facilities, including the Shishou Sanctuary that was flooded in 1998. Location within China Modern and ancient   (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: WÇ”hàn) is the capital of Hubei province, and is the most populous city in central China. ... ISO 4217 Code CNY User(s) Mainland of the Peoples Republic of China Inflation rate 1. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 3. ... Wiktionary has a definition of: In vitro In vitro (Latin: within glass) means within a test tube, or, more generally, outside a living organism or cell. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

Efforts to save the mammals proved to be too little and too late. August Pfluger, chief executive of the baiji.org Foundation, said, "The strategy of the Chinese government was a good one, but we didn't have time to put it into action." ^[6]

Captive specimens

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine documented their encounters with the endangered animals on their conservation travels for the BBC programme Last Chance to See. The book by the same name, published in 1990, included pictures of a captive specimen, a male named Qi Qi (淇淇) that lived in the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology dolphinarium from 1980 to July 14, 2002. Discovered by a fisherman in Dongting Lake, it became the sole resident of the Baiji Dolphinarium (白鱀豚水族馆) beside East Lake. A later captive died after a year (1996 to 1997) in the Shishou Tian-e-Zhou Baiji Semi-natural Reserve (石首半自然白鱀豚保护区), which had contained only Finless Porpoises since 1990. A female, found in Chongming Island near Shanghai in 1998, did not eat any of the provided food and starved to death within a month. Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was a British author, comic radio dramatist, and amateur musician. ... Mark Carwardine (born 1959-03-09) is a zoologist, who at one time was affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund, and has been a free lance writer, photographer and zoologist since 1986. ... The front cover of the first US hardcover edition of Last Chance to See. ... Dolphinarium is a great aquarium for dolphins. ... July 14 is the 195th day (196th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 170 days remaining. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... Dongting Lake or Lake Dongting (also Dong Lake, 洞庭湖; Pinyin: Dòngtíng hú; Wade-Giles: Tung-ting Hu) is a large, shallow lake in northeastern Hunan Province of China. ... Binomial name Neophocaena phoconoides (G. Cuvier, 1829) Finless Porpoise range The Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is one of six porpoise species. ... This article is about the year. ... Chongming County (崇明县, pinyin: Chóngmíng Xiàn) is the only county under the jurisdication of Shanghai, China. ... Shanghai (Chinese: ; pinyin:  ; Shanghainese: ), situated on the banks of the Yangtze River Delta in East China, is the largest city of the Peoples Republic of China and the eighth largest in the world. ...

Two expedition boats cruise along the Yangtze in search of the Chinese River Dolphin.

Image File history File links Two_expedition_boats_cruise_along_the_Yangtze_. ... Image File history File links Two_expedition_boats_cruise_along_the_Yangtze_. ...

2006 expedition

The Xinhua News Agency announced on 4 December 2006 that no Chinese River Dolphins were detected in a six-week survey of the Yangtze River conducted by 30 researchers. The failure of the Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition (长江淡水豚类考察) raised suspicions of the first unequivocal extinction of a cetacean species due to human action^[7] (some extinct baleen whale populations might not have been distinct species). Poor water and weather conditions may have prevented sightings,^[1] but some scientists declared it "functionally extinct" on 13 December 2006 as fewer are likely to be alive than are needed to propagate the species.^[1] Front gate of the main building of Xinhua News Agency in Beijing The Xinhua News Agency (Simplified Chinese: 新华社; Traditional Chinese: 新華社; pinyin: ), or NCNA (New China News Agency), is the official press agency of the government of the Peoples Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and... December 4 is the 338th day of the year (339th on leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Two of the expedition boats on the Yangtze The Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition 2006 was a six-week search expedition undertaken in November and December 2006 in the city of Wuhan in central China in an attempt to locate continued proof of the existence of the endangered Baiji Yangtze Dolphin. ... Suborders Mysticeti Odontoceti (see text) The order Cetacea includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. ... Functional extinction is the extinction of a species or other taxon, as measured by one of the following: it disappears from the fossil record, or historic reports of its existence cease[1] the population is reduced to an extent that it no longer plays a significant role in ecosystem function... -1... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Others retain some hope for the species. Wang Limin, director of the World Wildlife Fund Wuhan office said, "The fact that the expedition didn't see any baiji dolphins during this expedition does not necessarily mean that the species is extinct or even 'effectively extinct', because it covered a considerable distance in a relatively short period of time... However, we are extremely concerned. The Yangtze is highly degraded, and we spotted dramatically fewer finless porpoises than we have in the past."^[8] Note: After losing a court case in 2002 on the use of the initials WWF, the organization previously known as the World Wrestling Federation has rebranded itself as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. WWF - The Conservation Organization was formerly known as World Wildlife Fund and Worldwide Fund for Nature. ... Binomial name Neophocaena phoconoides (G. Cuvier, 1829) Finless Porpoise range The Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is one of six porpoise species. ...

See also

• Chinese White Dolphin
• List of extinct animals of Asia
• List of extinct mammals

Trinomial name Sousa chinensis chinensis (Osbeck, 1765) The Chinese White Dolphin (Sousa chinensis chinensis; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Zhōnghuá bái hǎitún), also called Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin, is a subspecies of the Humpback dolphin and is one of eighty cetacean species. ... The list of extinct animals of Asia features the animals that have become extinct along the history in the Asian Continent. ... // Prehistoric extinctions A large number of historical orders are extinct, e. ...

References

2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... -1... June 27 is the 178th day of the year (179th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 187 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lipotes vexillifer

• ARKive - images and movies of the baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)
• The baiji Foundation - Networking Expertise for Conservation of Freshwater Biodiversity
• Lipotes vexillifer, IUCN Red List entry, with extensive details.
• Lipotes vexillifer, Endangered and Protected Species Database of Chinese Animals
• Animal Info page on Baiji
• "Lipotes vexillifer: Baiji or Chinese River Dolphin" (cetacea.org, via Internet Archive)
• whale-web.com
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Species Profile
• BBC News "Last chance for China's dolphin"
• BBC News "Failure in Yangtze dolphin search"
• The baiji Foundation "Hope dies last"
• Baiji is functionally extinct
• Search for Baiji