Critically Endangered
Baiji
Lipotes vexillifer
Baiji is a mammal in the family Lipotidae (order Cetacea) — Lipotes vexillifer, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to China.
Appearance
The species is also called the Chinese river dolphin, Yangtze river dolphin, Yangtze dolphin, and whitefin dolphin. It is not to be confused with the Chinese white dolphin (Sousa chinensis) or the finless porpoise (Neophocaena). In August 2007, a Chinese man reportedly videotaped a large white animal swimming in the Yangtze.
Range and habitat
Historically, the Baiji occurred along 1,700 kilometres (1,100 mi) of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, from Yichang in the west to the mouth of the river near to Shanghai, as well as in Poyang and Dongting Lakes and the smaller Qiantang River to the south. Approximately 12% of the world's human population lives and works within the Yangtze River catchment area, putting pressure on the river. The Baiji is a possibly extinct species of river dolphin native to the Yangtze river system in China.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Habits
The Baiji represents the first documented global extinction of an aquatic "megafaunal" vertebrate in over 50 years since the demise of the Japanese sea lion (Zalophus japonicus) and the Caribbean monk seal (Neomonachus tropicalis) in the 1950s.
In crisis
It is thought to possibly be the first dolphin species driven to extinction due to the impact of humans. This dolphin is listed as "critically endangered: possibly extinct" by the IUCN, has not been definitively seen in over 20 years, and several surveys of the Yangtze have failed to find it. The Baiji population declined drastically in decades as China industrialized and made heavy use of the river for fishing, transportation, and hydroelectricity.
Following surveys in the Yangtze River during the 1980s, the Baiji was claimed to be the first dolphin species in history driven to extinction by humans. Organizers declared the Baiji functionally extinct.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Baiji is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Baiji, Wikidata item Q188130. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
