Delfín chino de río
| Chinese River Dolphin | ||
|---|---|---|
| Archivo:Lipotes vexillifer.jpg | ||
| Estado de conservación | ||
 Extinto desde 2006 | ||
| Taxonomía | ||
| Reino: | Animalia | |
| Filo: | Chordata | |
| Clase: | Mammalia | |
| Subclase: | Eutheria | |
| Orden: | Cetacea | |
| Suborden: | Odontoceti | |
| Superfamilia: | Platanistoidea | |
| Familia: | Lipotidae | |
| Género: | Lipotes | |
| Especie: |
L. vexillifer Miller, 1918 | |
| Distribución | ||
 Former natural range of Lipotes vexillifer. | ||
El Delfín de Río Chino' (Lipotes vexillifer) era un delfín de agua fresca encontrado sólo en el río Yangtze en China. Otros nombres incluyen Baiji (白鱀 Pinyin: báijì), Beiji, Pai-chi (Wade-Giles), Delfín de aleta blanca, Delfín de bandera blanca, Delfín de Yangtze y Delfín del río Yangtze. La superfamilia de delfines de río incluye al Boto y Delfín del río de la plata. Apodado "la diosa del Yangtze (長江女神) en China, es asumido extinto a fines del 2006 luego de que una expedición no pudo encontrar ni uno el el río.
Historia
Los récords de fósiles indican que los delfines enmigranon del océano pacífico al río Yangtze hace 20 millones de años. Se estima que había 5.000 delfines cuando fueron descritos en el diccionario de la dinastia Han "Erya".
Camino hacia la extinción
- 1979: China lo declara en peligro de extinción
- 1983: La caza del Delfín de Río Chino es declarada ilegal
- 1986: Quedan 300 individuos
- 1989: Se completa la presa Gezhouba
- 1990: Quedan 200 individuos
- 1994: Empieza la construcción de la presa de los Tres Gorges
- 1997: Quedan menos de 50 ejemplares (se cuentan sólo 23)
- 1998: Se encuentran sólo 7 ejemplares
- 2003: Empieza a llenarse la citada presa
- 2006: No se encuentra ningún individuo, lo cual indica que están "extintos con toda probabilidad"
Soon after it decided to modernize, China recognized the precarious state of the river dolphin. In 1978, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established the Freshwater Dolphin Research Centre (淡水海豚研究中心) as a branch of the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology. Its efforts to save the mammals proved to be too little and too late, however. The first Chinese aquatic species protection organisation, the Baiji Dolphin Conservation Foundation of Wuhan (武汉白鱀豚保护基金), was founded in December 1996. It has raised 1,383,924.35 CNY (about 100,000 USD) and used the funds for in vitro cell preservation and to maintain the Chinese River Dolphin facilities, including the Shishou Sanctuary that was flooded in 1998.
Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine documented their encounters with the endangered animals on their conservation travels for the BBC program Last Chance to See. The book by the same name, published in 1990, included pictures of a captive specimen, a male named Qi Qi (淇淇) that lived in the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology dolphinarium from 1980 to July 14 2002. Discovered by a fisherman in Dongting Lake, it became the sole resident of the Baiji Dolphinarium (白鱀豚水族馆) beside East Lake. A later captive died after a year (1996 to 1997) in the Shishou Tian-e-Zhou Semi-natural Reserve (石首半自然白鱀豚保护区), which contained only Finless Porpoises since 1990. A female was found in Chongming Island near Shanghai in 1998, but she did not eat any of the provided food and starved to death within a month.
The most endangered cetacean in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records,[1] the species was last sighted in September 2004. The Xinhua News Agency announced on 4 December 2006 that no Chinese River Dolphins were detected in a six-week survey of the Yangtze River conducted by 30 researchers. The failure of the Yangtze Freshwater Dolphin Expedition (长江淡水豚类考察) raised suspicions of the first unequivocal extinction of a cetacean species due to human action [2] (some extinct baleen whale populations may or may not have been distinct species). Poor water and weather conditions may have prevented sightings,[1] but some scientists declared it "functionally extinct" on 13 December 2006. Its current population is difficult to estimate, but fewer are thought to be alive than are needed to propagate the species. [cita requerida]
Causes of extinction
The demise of the species has been attributed to overfishing, dam-building, environmental degradation, and ship collisions.[1]
The Three Gorges Dam has irrevocably altered the habitat of the Chinese River Dolphin. Scientists had hoped to save the species by moving some to a nearby lake, then re-introduce the species into the Yangtze when the prospect of survival there increased. Other species which have been further threatened by the dam include the Siberian Crane and Chinese paddlefish.
See also
References
- ↑ a b Error en la cita: Etiqueta
<ref>no válida; no se ha definido el contenido de las referencias llamadasbaiji - ↑ «Rare Yangtze dolphin may be extinct». Consultado el 5 de diciembre de 2006.
External links
Wikimedia Commons alberga una galería multimedia sobre Delfín chino de río.- ARKive - images and movies of the baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)
- The baiji Foundation - Networking Expertise for Conservation of Freshwater Biodiversity
- Lipotes vexillifer, IUCN Red List entry, with extensive details.
- Lipotes vexillifer, Endangered and Protected Species Database of Chinese Animals
- Animal Info page on Baiji
- "Lipotes vexillifer: Baiji or Chinese River Dolphin" (cetacea.org, via Internet Archive)
- whale-web.com
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Species Profile
- BBC News "Last chance for China's dolphin"
- The baiji Foundation "Hope dies last"
- Baiji blog
- Baiji is functionally extinct
- Search for Baiji