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Posted by Sue Bryant Aug 16, 2007 |
The chances of spotting a Yangtze river dolphin on a cruise of the Yangtze Gorges was always extremely slim, but now it’s thought to be gone forever. Although a sighting was practically unheard of, it added to the exoticism of the Yangtze river, knowing that somewhere in the swirling depths was thriving a species of eight-foot, freshwater dolphin.
Sadly, the most recent acoustic surveys of the river, conducted late in 2006, have failed to find a single animal and the river dolphin, locally known as a baiji, has been declared ‘probably extinct’. In the late 1970s there were around 400 dolphins in the river and its channels, but numbers have declined depressingly fast. The last individual in captivity died in 2002.
Cruising has contributed to the dolphin’s demise, although only in a minor way, collisions with boats being one factor in the animal's extinction. Massive over-fishing of the baiji’s food source, poaching, accidental catching of the dolphins in nets, the construction of the gorges and pollution have all played their part. The river is dense with fishing boats, trying to feed the 10% of the world’s population that lives in the region, and these have posed far greater a threat than the cruise ships.
An ambitious plan was hatched a couple of years ago to capture some baiji and raise them in a well-stocked lake, reintroducing them to the river in years to come, but this has been abandoned. Scientists now fear for the future of a rare subspecies of finless porpoise that also lives in the river.
So if your cruise travels take you to China and you’re gazing at the river from the comfort of your private balcony, do keep an eye out for these incredibly rare creatures. You never know, you might spot one, and play your part in bringing the dolphin back from the brink of extinction.