An international research team, including biologists from NOAA
Fisheries Service, has reported in an online scientific journal
that it had failed to find a single Yangtze River dolphin, or
baiji, during a six-week survey in China. The scientists fear
the marine mammal is now extinct due to fishing and commercial
development, which would make it the first cetacean to vanish as
result of human activity. The research paper, published last
month in the online journal Biology Letters, reports that an
intensive acoustical and visual survey of the main Yangtze River
where the baiji live failed to find what was already considered
to be one of the world’s most endangered species. “The last time
these animals were surveyed was in the 1990s when only 13 were
found,” said Barbara Taylor, a marine biologist at NOAA’s
Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif., and one
of the researchers on the scientific team that was working with
local scientists at the invitation of the Chinese government.
“This time, we det