Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

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tiberius9876
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Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by tiberius9876 »

Scientists in China now believe the only freshwater dolphin living in the Yangtze river is now extinct. This is the first documented extinction of a vertebrate this large in over 50 years. Personally, I find this a wake up call as a branch of the evolutionary tree is cut. Humans are almost exclusively to blame for what the species being wiped out. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6935343.stm

Its time to wake up and make a difference, especially when it comes to the elections in '08. As an American I feel its time we push to make the USA a green first world country. Its time to put the republicans, creationists, and those that doubt the effects of global warming in there place by voting their asses out of office! Its time to become active. Whether you are a hypocrite, busy body, or eco-hero, you can help. In the words of George Meyer (a writer and producer for The Simpsons), "If you are not currently choking a panda, welcome aboard".
Last edited by tiberius9876 on Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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guywildman
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by guywildman »

k so I need to comment on this.
first of this is *not* the fault global warming or America. the Chine's river dolphin is nearly blind and relies nearly sowly on it's ears in order to navigate in the water, it used to work exceptionally well up until the point china became industrialized and motor boats became part of the river's environment, the noise confused the dolphins making them hit the propeller blades, the fact that the chine's believe the dolphin is a delicacy doesn't help.
any way the economy grow and with it more and more boats and river side factories created more and more noise, the result was dolphin slaughter, that caused Chinas government to begin building a preservation in the river, I guess that was to late.
no were in this equation is there any mention to America or global warming, if your going to talk about a problem you really should be accurate about the symptoms that caused it instead of going to the most generically used ones and hope they stick, no mater how democratic or environmentalist the American president would have been, he would not have been able to change this, China is out of his jurisdiction.
As for what you said about evolution, the way it works is by killing species that don't suite the environment, what happened was an example to evolution it's just that humans are the part of the environment that caused this race to die out, sort of like an extremely fast and hungry lion race would cause the extinction of zebras.
now for some clarification, I love animals, I think extinction of creatures because humans want they're body parts is stupid pointless and selfish, I think animal testing for beauty products is discussting but I cant say I don't understand Chinas point of view, that river is a major transportation route for them and if it's a choice between a dolphin and their economy I cant say they should choose to save the dolphin and they did try and save it so that should count for something no?
I learned most this throw a book called "last chance to see" by daggles Adams by the way, I recommend it to everybody.
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psi29a
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by psi29a »

Does anyone mind citing the sources so we can all read it?

Not flame anyone, but please follow the format of the other starting posts in this thread.

If it isn't your ideas, quote it. If you can, cite your sources. Thanks.
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tiberius9876
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by tiberius9876 »

Allow me to clarify something. My original comment had two purposes. The first was to mention a fact I found very important/disturbing. The other was to get up on my soap box for a minute. The fact that things like that are happening in the world is enough reason for everyone to become united on making a difference. By naming groups at the end such as creationists and those that don't believe in global warming I was merely pointing to the groups of people who generally tend to not give a damn about the environment. Sorry for any confusion there. I am also very aware as to why the dolphin is extinct.

What inspired me to write my first comment was seeing an article on the matter on the BBC.
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by Albator »

Why do you think creationists don't give a damn about environment?
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psi29a
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by psi29a »

You can rant all you want to, after the original article, it's citation if possible.

That way I can join in, informed and not just keying off my limited knowledge.

So, either edit your original post or this thread gets locked.

Those are the rules here, laid down by the killfile. :P
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Gaiseric
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by Gaiseric »

Albator wrote:Why do you think creationists don't give a damn about environment?
Obviously, the extinction of the dolphin was part of God's plan.
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then
blames them for his own mistakes." - Gene Roddenberry
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by psi29a »

Major news outlets are reporting that after 20 million years,Baiji (Yangtze River Dolphin) are now officially extinct. This is apparently actually old news; it was announced on a Baiji conservation website in December of last year. One outlet, though, is claiming they may not quite be completely dead yet. The same scientist that filed the report leading the the declaration of extinction is still hopeful: '"This is only one survey and...you can't have a sample in a survey, so you cannot say the baiji all is gone by the result of only one survey," he said. "For example, there is some side channels or some tributaries [where] we cannot go because of a restriction of navigation rules, and also we don't survey during the night-time so we may miss some animals in the Yangtze River." Professor Ding says based on anecdotal evidence, he remains confident the dolphins are still out there. "I'm pretty much sure there are a few of them left somewhere in the Yangtze River," he said. "I keep receiving reports from fishermen, they say they saw a couple of baiji somewhere, sometime.
Endangered yes, extinct? Not so fast.
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by uncempt »

The part of this that bothered me the most is that they weren't even intentionally massacred. Nobody's been trying to kill these dolphins, they were just dying in the course of everyday business. That's horrific. Death by indifference.

I think the talk of green first world countries isn't out of place here, but this is a huge issue. Even if America can become environmentally friendly then other countries won't necessarily follow their lead. I mean, China's in catchup mode, so at the moment developing as quickly as possible is all that matters to them. Environmental awareness is almost a luxury of the rich, right? Don't get me wrong, we all need to get our acts together, but I reckon it's going to take some serious cooperation and wealth rebalancing before we can work out a way to live sustainably on this little ball of rock.
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Re: Rare River Dolphin Now Believed Extinct!

Post by psi29a »

Olympic athletes are going to find it heard to breath with the high air pollution in Beijing. Already, some athletes are there doing trails and are already developing bronchial problems. With the recent crap going on with poisonous Chinese exports, perhaps even the WHO and WTO will ratcheting things down on the Chinese so that they play equally with the other nation members.
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