Shit! First large vertebrate extinction in fifty years. Slippery Slope?
Wed, Aug 8, 2007
Another day, another extinction: after a comprehensive six-week study scientists fear that the rare Chinese Yangtze river dolphins, known as “baijis”, may be extinct. Having failed to find any of the baiji, which were already classified as “critically endangered” by the World Conservation Union’s Red List of Treatened Species, the research team blamed unregulated fishing for the disappearance.
Dr Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London described this as a “shocking tragedy”: “This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet.”
Baiji were not actively hunted, unlike the Brazilian dolphins we reported on last month. The team’s report highlighted that the extinction differs from most historical extinctions of large bodied animals because it was not “an active persecution but an incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts”.
We can only hope it’s not the first of many animals to be wiped out in this way.
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August 8th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
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August 8th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
[...] Hopefully it’s not true, and they find one somewhere. We kinda need these animals to live. Dr Sam Turvey of the Zoological Society of London described this as a “shocking tragedy”: “This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasizes that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet.” — Environmental Graffiti [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
[...] Shit! First large vertebrate extinction in fifty years. Slippery Slope? [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
[...] Armageddon Happens Every Day If you’re unlucky enough to be a species at the mercy of man… [...]
August 8th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
[...] species of dolphin dies out. Egads. And what wonderfully odd animals they were. Too bad no-one could claim ownership of them [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
[...] Fa sempre impressione annunciare la scomparsa di una specie animale. Se si tratta di un mammifero è ancora peggio. Stavolta tocca a un delfino. [...]
September 14th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
[...] this month Environmental Graffiti reported on the extinction of the baiji dolphin, native to the Yangtze River in China. The dolphin was declared extinct after researchers conducted [...]
November 12th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
[...] Yangtze River does not have a good track record with protecting endangered species, as we reported last week. Its deteriorating environment and increased shipping traffic have taken [...]