AY Honors/Species Account/Lipotes vexillifer

Lipotes vexillifer

Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer)

Where found: Yangtze River in China until extinction

Description: The Baiji (Chinese: 白鱀豚) was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in China. Lipotes meaning "left behind", vexillifer "flag bearer". The baiji population declined drastically in decades as China industrialized and made heavy use of the river for fishing, transportation, and hydroelectricity. Efforts were made to conserve the species, but a late 2006 expedition failed to find any baiji in the river. Organizers declared the baiji functionally extinct, which would make it the first known aquatic mammal species to become extinct since the demise of the Japanese sea lion and the Caribbean monk seal in the 1950s. It would also be the first recorded extinction of a well-studied cetacean species to be directly attributable to human influence. In August 2007, a Chinese man reportedly videotaped a large white animal swimming in the Yangtze. Although it was tentatively confirmed that the animal on the video is probably a baiji, the presence of only one or a few animals, particularly of advanced age, is not enough to save a functionally extinct species from true extinction. The last known living baiji was Qiqi (淇淇), who died in 2002.