Fucking great, we managed to kill another species.
Scientists are calling it a day for the Baiji dolphin. After searching for nearly six weeks along the dolphin's Yangtze River habitat and not coming up with one single dolphin they have announced that the species is totally or functionally extinct. Total extinction is clear enough... they are just fucking gone...but "functional extinction" deserves an explanation. The scientist says that even if they missed some they believe there are fewer than the required 20-25 dolphins to continue the species. This is in sharp contrast to the informal estimates of the 1980's where they guessed about 400 dolphins, and the last full official study in 1997 found only 13. Now they are just fucking gone.Fun facts:
--Baiji, or "white dolphin", has survived for 25 million years as a species. Shy and nearly blind, they didn't have much in the way of predators or threats for millennia of millennia... until guess who showed up?
--Commercial over-fishing, pollution of the river and shipping noise are cited as the main reasons for the dolphin's decline.
--Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century (since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal) that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.
--While the scientists were looking for the Baiji they counted up some other species and found the Yangtze finless porpoise is also severely threatened with fewer than 400 left. One scientist likened the situation with the Yangtze finless porpoise to the situation the Baiji faced a few years ago. They are working to save them by "raising awareness of the problem".
--I predict I will get the chance to post that the Yangtze finless porpoise went extinct in the near future.
About the only good thing to come from this is I am reminded that America is not alone in fucking up the planet. I'm sure an entire species of dolphin is happy to have died for my little life lesson. I need a fucking beer.
three comments:
Just a thought. People are always trying to show how evolution works and there are others trying to prove that it doesn’t. This is a prime example of evolution in action! This thing died because it couldn’t adapt. Kind of cool, if you ask me. Millions and millions and millions of years and here we are, right here at the exact right moment to see it. Like I said, it was just a though…
Chad () (link) - 12 18 06 - 11:52
That is not an unreasonable concept in and of itself, but there is a difference between squeezing something off until it dies and peaceful co-existance. We couldn’t even do peaceful co-existance in America with the indiginous indians, and they could arguably think and adapt whereas you cannot expect an entire animal species to “just get along” with man when their environment is polluted beyond anything nature would typically do, their food depleted beyond any natural predatorial competition, and their general living conditions made stressful by constant noise. You may be able to live next to an airport, but most animals expect and require quiet.
Adaptation to pollution, minimal food and excessive noise would require any animal species, MAN INCLUDED, many millenia to mutate towards. Man has the advantage of tools, so if we have an unfavorable condition we either alter it or pack up and leave for nicer places. Almost no other animal on the planet can do that, and NO other animal has our tools… so they are all pretty much 100% at our mercy.
Not a pretty place to be. People are stupid, petty, shallow, willfully and proudly ignorant, motivated by greed, heedless of actions that have a result more than 20 years in the future… wonderful jury of “peers”.
—Don
Don Stratton () (link) - 12 18 06 - 12:06
Oh no… we can’t get off that easy.
America is probably more responsible for the dolphin extinction than most think.
Where does all that pollution and shipping traffic come from?
Gee silly… that’s a no brainer.
From making all that cheap worthless crap China exports to America every day, that’s where!
Thank you Wal-Mart… for keeping my wallet fat, my conscience empty.
Sparky1039 () - 01 31 07 - 18:31