Baiji Dolphin Extinct Thanks to Chinese Government

A sad story, a species of Dolphin was declared extinct today. The AP reports that China's rapid and unchecked growth coupled with the consequential destruction of the Yangtze river has resulted in the population of the Baiji Dolphin vanishing, making it functionally extinct. This is the first mammal to be declared extinct in over 40 years.

The Chinese called this mammal the "Goddess of the Yangtze" yet they did little to protect it, and their rampant expansion has polluted the river, destroyed the food chain, and killed the last 400 living creatures since the 1980s. The last sighting was in 2004. It's sad to see a species wiped off the planet after surviving for nearly 20 million years. It does not speak well of our fellow humans.

You can go to baiji.org to read more about this. As their website says "The baiji is Functionally extinct. Lipotes vexilifier is the first species of cetacean – whales, dolphins, and porpoises – to disappear from our globe in modern times…the first large mammal to go extinct as a result of man’s destruction of their natural habitat and resources."