Have you heard of the Baiji, a freshwater dolphin from China? Probably not (unless you read Douglas Adam's Last Chance to See). And as someone noted in the comments section of an NGO's blog desperately trying to alert people to the plight of this amazing mammal, "it is a true tragedy that the most publicized single moment for an endangered animal, like the Baiji, is the moment it officially disappears."
And now the Baiji, one of FOUR freshwater dolphin species in the world, is gone...
The Baiji Yangtze Dolphin is with all probability extinct. On Wednesday, in the city of Wuhan in central China, a search expedition, under the direction of the Institute for Hydrobiology Wuhan and the Swiss-based baiji.org Foundation, drew to a finish without any results. During the six-week expedition scientists from six nations desperately searched the Yangtze in vain.
Let this extinction serve as a clarion call to all of us. We MUST do something to protect habitat and to ensure that our rivers and oceans are clean, robust, and capable of supporting human and animal life.
And it's not just dolphins. It's EVERYTHING. Want to see the ugly details of 100s and 100s of species of birds that are close to extinction? Take a look at endangered birds in Asia,
South America, Oceania, and more...
I've been thinking of something lately: The opportunity cost of conservation initiatives and funding in the United States. After all, the United States, compared to most of the world, has relatively decent environmental protection laws. Moreover, the biodiversity in the US is pretty low, compared to tropical regions that harbor far more species. (Do a search for endangered birds in North America and you will find the number to be far less than in tropical areas, for example... (and in fact the majority of the birds listed for US are ones in Hawaii!))
And so the cost of doing anything in the United States, in terms of conservation, is pretty darn high. The low-hanging fruit has been picked. And additional measures cost so much.
Compare that to the cost of conservation initiatives in developing countries, where things are much cheaper, where there's so much low-hanging fruit in terms of basic conservation work to be done, and where overall biodiversity is far higher.
I don't mean to belittle our internally focused efforts in the US. But, when I read things about dolphins going extinct in developing countries like China, it really hits home... just imagine how far, say, $2 million could have gone to conserving this species. This year, over $6 billion was approved in bond measures for conservation measures to protect farmland in the US... imagine if a fraction of that was assigned to Africa conservation, or Asia, or...?
I mean, look, the Baiji (also known as the white-flat dolphin) won't be the first dolphin to vanish. What about the Irrawaddy dolphin in Cambodia and Vietnam? It's also critically endangered. Just imagine what a fraction of a fraction of the Sierra Club's annual budget could do if applied to helping this dolphin?
I personally think that Conservation International, bankrolled by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, is doing wonderful things.
Given the passing of the Baiji dolphin, why not consider a small donation, in memorial, to this charity to help ensure that future international extinctions are avoided.
Goodbye friend...
P.S., This diary was recommended on DailyKos Environmentalists.