Baiji

For other uses, see Baiji (disambiguation).

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

The Baiji (白鱀豚 Pinyin: báijìtún) (Lipotes vexillifer) was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China. Other names include Chinese River Dolphin, Yangtze River Dolphin, Beiji, Pai-chi (Wade-Giles), Whitefin Dolphin and Yangtze Dolphin.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Decline of the species

In the 1950s, the population was estimated at 6,000 animals, but declined rapidly over the subsequent five decades. Now the most endangered cetacean in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the baiji was last sighted in September 2004.

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.

As China developed industrially, 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.

In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of baiji 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." 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.

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
• 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"

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.

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.

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."

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.

File:Two expedition boats cruise along the Yangtze ..jpg

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

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 (some extinct baleen whale populations might not have been distinct species). Poor water and weather conditions may have prevented sightings, 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.

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."

See also

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

External links

• 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