Thursday, August 4, 2011

Creature of the month: Yangtze River Dolphin


The Yangtze River Dolphin – This species of dolphin is found exclusively in China, and given the record expansion of China’s economic and social system, it has caused the Yangtze to become all but extinct as it has to compete for it’s habitat and limited resources of food with an enormous population.


River dolphins are the four living species of dolphin which reside in freshwater rivers andestuaries. River dolphins inhabit areas of Asia and South America. River dolphins may be white, pink, yellow, brown, gray, or black.


Farewell to the Yangtze River Dolphin-. A December 2006 survey found no members of Lipotidae (commonly known as the Yangtze River dolphin) and declared the species functionally extinct. It is believed that overfishing, damming and sub-aquatic sonar pollution (which interfered with the dolphin's sonar-based method of locating food), led to the extinction. Reuters news reported this their first record of an aquatic mammalian extinction in 50 years.


No comments:

Post a Comment