Baiji

 ( 2007 In The Environment ) 

During the Great Leap Forward, when traditional veneration of the baiji was denounced, it was hunted for its flesh and skin, and quickly became scarce.

As China developed economically, pressure on the Yangtze river dolphin grew significantly. Industrial waste and residential waste flowed into the Yangtze. The riverbed was dredged and reinforced with concrete in many locations. Ship traffic multiplied, boats grew in size, and fishermen employed wider and more lethal nets. Noise pollution caused the nearly blind animal to collide with propellers. Stocks of the dolphin's prey declined drastically in the late 20th century, with some fish populations declining to one thousandth of their pre-industrial levels.

A range of anthropogenic-led causes (e.g. boat collisions, dam construction) which also threaten freshwater cetaceans in other river systems have been implicated in the decline of the baiji population. However, the primary factor was probably unsustainable by-catch in local fisheries, which use rolling hooks, nets (Gillnetting and fyke nets), and electrofishing; similarly, by-catch constitutes the principal cause of mortality in many populations of small cetaceans worldwide. Although there is relatively few data available on baiji mortality, at least half of all known baiji deaths in the 1970s and 1980s were caused by rolling hooks and other fishing gear, and electrofishing accounted for 40% of baiji deaths recorded during the 1990s. Unlike most historical-era extinctions of large-bodied animals, the baiji was the victim not of active persecution but of incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts, primarily uncontrolled fishing.

Its extinction merely reflects the latest stage in the progressive ecological deterioration of the Yangtze region. In the 1970s and 1980s, an estimated half of baiji deaths were attributed to bycatch in fishing gear and nets. By the early 2000s, electric fishing was considered "the most important and immediate direct threat to the baiji's survival". Though outlawed, this fishing technique is widely and illegally practiced throughout China. The building of the Three Gorges Dam further reduced the dolphin's habitat and facilitated an increase in ship traffic. These impacts were thought to make it extinct in the wild.

There are some scientists who have found that pollution has resulted in emerging diseases caused by parasitic infection in the baiji population. The baiji's reliance on aquatic environments could have resulted in interaction with both terrestrial and marine pathogen risks. Since the baiji has a limited distribution endemic to the Yangtze River, the freshwater environment may have a higher pathogen level than marine waters (although systematic environmental studies have yet to be conducted). The pathogens in these waters could lead to viral infections that can result in , which has caused the deaths of thousands of marine mammals over the last 20 years. There have also been captured/killed individuals that have had Helminthiasis infestations in the stomach, which leads scientists to believe that parasitic infections could be another cause of decline amongst the baiji.

It has been noted, however, that the declining geographical range that baiji have been spotted in is not connected to the population loss of baiji. A model provided by Yangtze fishing communities show that the baiji population was not connected by geographical range or fragmentation of location, as the baiji make long-term and periodic movements throughout several years. The movements of the baiji left the species unaffected by dwindling geographical range.

In 1978, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established the Freshwater Dolphin Research Centre as a branch of the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology. In the 1980s and 1990s, several attempts were made to capture dolphins and relocate them to a reserve. A breeding program would then allow the species to recover and be reintroduced to the Yangtze after conditions improve. However, capturing the rare, quick dolphins proved to be difficult, and few captives survived more than a few months.

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 Renminbi (about 100,000) and used the funds for in vitro cell preservation and to maintain the baiji facilities, including the Shishou Sanctuary that was flooded in 1998.

Since 1992, five protected areas of the Yangtze have been designated as baiji reserves. Four were built in the main Yangtze channel where baiji are actively protected and fishing is banned: two national reserves (Shishou and Xin-Luo) and two provincial (Tongling and Zhenjiang). In the past 20 years, five nature reserves have been established along the river. Imposing maximum prohibition of harmful and illegal fishing methods in the reserves might prolong the process of extinction of these cetaceans in the wild, but so far, the administrative measures taken in the reserves have not yet kept the baiji population from sharply declining. As humans continue to occupy the river and use the natural resources it provides, the question as to whether the river itself can reach a point later in the future to become a habitat for these species to live in once again remains, for the most part, unanswered by conservationists. In Shishou, Hubei Province, and Tongling, Anhui Province, the two semi-natural reserves established in these regions aimed to build in an environment for the baiji, as well as another mammalian species, the Yangtze finless porpoise, to breed. Through careful management, both these species not only survived, but did in fact reproduce successfully enough to provide some hope that the baiji may be able to make a comeback.

The fifth protected area is an isolated oxbow lake located off of the north bank of the river near to Shishou City: the Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Semi-natural Reserve. Combined, these five reserves cover just over , about of the baijis' range, leaving two-thirds of the species' habitat unprotected.

As well as these five protected areas, there are also five "Protection Stations" in Jianli, Chenglingji, Hukou, Wuhu, and Zhengjiang. These stations consist of two observers and a motorized fishing boat, with the aim of conducting daily patrols, making observations, and investigating reports of illegal fishing.

In 2001, the Chinese government approved a Conservation Action Plan for Cetaceans of the Yangtze River. This plan re-emphasised the three measures identified at the 1986 workshop and was adopted as the national policy for the conservation of the Baiji. Despite all of these workshops and conventions, little money was available in China to aid the conservation efforts. It has been estimated that US$1 million was needed to begin the project and maintain it for a further 3 years.

Efforts to save the mammals proved to be too little and too late. August Pfluger, chief executive of the Baiji.org Foundation, said, "The strategy of the Chinese government was a good one, but we didn't have time to put it into action." Furthermore, the conservation attempts have been criticized, as even with the international attention about the need for conservation for the baiji, the Chinese government did not "make any serious investment" to protect the baiji.

The Shishou Tian-e-Zhou is a long, wide oxbow lake located near Shishou City in Hubei Province. Shishou has been described as being "like a miniature Yangtze ... possessing all of the requirements for a semi-natural reserve". From the designation as a national reserve in 1992, it has been intended to be used for not only the baiji but also the Yangtze finless porpoise. In 1990, the first finless porpoises were relocated to the reserve and since then have been surviving and reproducing well. As of April 2005, 26 finless porpoises were known to live in the reserve. A baiji was introduced in December 1995, but died during the summer flood of 1996. To deal with these annual floods, a dyke was constructed between the Yangtze and Shishou. Now water is controlled from a sluice gate located at the downstream mouth of the oxbow lake. It has been reported that since the installation of this sluice gate, water quality has declined since no annual transfer of nutrients can occur. Roughly 6,700 people live on the island within the oxbow lake, and so some limited fishing is permitted.

The success of Shishou with the porpoises and with migratory birds and other wetland fauna encouraged the local Wetlands Management Team to put forward an application to award the site Ramsar status. It has also been noted that the site has incredible potential for ecotourism, which could be used to generate much needed revenue to improve the quality of the reserve. The necessary infrastructure does not currently exist to realize these opportunities.

Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine documented their encounters with the endangered animals on their conservation travels for the BBC programme Last Chance to See. They came across baiji weighing scales and baiji fertilizer. They met Qi Qi, who was just a year old then, injured by fishing hooks in 1980, and taken into captivity to be nursed back to health. The book by the same name, published in 1990, included pictures of the captive specimen. Qi Qi lived in the Wuhan Institute of Hydrobiology dolphinarium from 1980 to July 14, 2002. Discovered by a fisherman in Dongting Lake, he became the sole resident of the Baiji Dolphinarium beside East Lake. A sexually mature female was captured in late 1995, but died after half a year in 1996 when the Tian-e-Zhou Oxbow Nature Reserve, which had contained only since 1990, was flooded.