filed under Daily Dose
“Functionally extinct” cuddle-dolphin sighted in China
5:34PM ON
12/07/2007
BY
Ari
Remember when there were manatees in the narragansett bay for some reason? That was cute as hell.
Well, aquatic mammal lovers or all races and places can celebrate just a tiny bit: the Yangtze river dolphin, or Baiji, whose extinction due to massive pollution and rampant development was announced last year, was sighted by a “hydrobiologist” in central China’s Anhui province recently.
A man saw a white object swimming in the river and filmed it. Wang Ding from the Institute of Hydrobiology, Wuhan, commented on the film he could not give a 100 percent confirmation since the video was of poor quality and taken from a distance of about 1000 metres away.
The news spread widely over the media. The region is indeed known as a hotspot for Baiji. Scientists of the Institute of Hydrobiology will organise a small survey in the area the film was shot within the next few weeks to conduct further investigations. Should the Baiji sighting be confirmed, it will be crucial to organise an unbureaucratic, well-coordinated capture and transfer the Baiji as soon as possible into the dolphinarium of the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan.
OOOOh! I hope there are some left, and that cloning techniques can repopulate the Yangtze some day. These dolphins are total cuties, and they’re also totally blind. So much cooler than these stupid endangered turtles.
December 8th, 2007 at 12:04PM
beth comery Says:
“…everybody wang ding tonight…”
Reply
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