White Dolphin Functionally Extict 868
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in nearly fifty years another mammal, specifically an aquatic mammal, has gone extinct. In this case, it was the white dolphin, also known as the Baiji, which used to live in the Yangtze River in China. The dolphin had been known to exist for the last 20 million years."
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Re:Oops! (Score:5, Funny)
Well that sucks (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes me feel bad about the tuna sandwiches I had for dinner last night.
While many ocean dolphins do get killed by tuna nets, the species that went extinct was a river dolphin, unique to the Yangtze. They were done in by the increasing pollution of that river. So instead of feeling bad about the tuna sandwiches you had you should feel bad about the cheap DVD player you bought -- not only did the people who put it together get paid slave wages, but the company that employed them didn't "waste" any money on pollution control.
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Top Of the Food Chain, Ma! (Score:5, Funny)
And keep in mind that all the other species on earth need us (or another species like us) and our clever monkey brains to figure out how to get off this rock before the sun explodes in a couple billion years. Otherwise all life that we know of will die and the whole entire exercise will have been pointless.
Re:Top Of the Food Chain, Ma! (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it's not like we've killed off so many species that scientists refer to the modern era as the Holocene Extinction Event [wikipedia.org], or the Sixth Extinction [actionbioscience.org]; or are claiming that this is the fastest mass extinction in Earth's history [amnh.org], giant meteors included. No, there's hardly any extinction going on.
Please perform at least a cursory Google search [google.com] before making broad scientific claims.
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There is intrinsic value in all living things, and while I'm no flaming hippy, who values individual fuzzy things more than people, I think that the careless extermination of an entire species, for no better reason than that the Chinese can't be bothered to not exterminate it, is a bad thing.
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Every time a land developer gets told they can't build something on land that they paid for because it's habitat of some obscure and largely irrelevant species, that's costing someone tons of money, the burden of which is borne by a few individuals. IMHO, that burden should be shared by all. If land is declared unbuildable because of endangered species laws, it should be mandatory that the government purchase that land at fair market value. In that way, everyone pays their fair share instead of a few peo
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These are some example questions. Assume you're on vacation far away and none of this causes you any direct physical harm. Now the questions:
- Say there's going to be a huge tragedy and someone's family is going to die. If you could chose whether your family dies or someone other family dies, which would you choose?
- Say there's going to be a huge accident and a whole town or city is going to be destroyed (comet, bomb, whatever)? Do you want it to be the town where you live, or some other town?
- Say there's going to be a plague and a whole nation is going to die from it. It will be everyone who speaks a particular language. Do you want it to be your people, or some others?
Are you getting it yet? It's pretty obvious. Everyone else understands the point implicitly -- all the rational ones anyway. It's OK if you're not. Be insane all you want. Just stop recruiting.
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Value is always subjective, and our facile attachment to human-shaped beings only obscures the deeper, broader value intrinsic to all life. If we are objective and deeply honest, we must admit that we as a species and we as a culture are utterly blind.
I was disheartened recently to hear Peter Singer (sometimes called "the father of the Animal Rights movement") quoted in an interview, saying that animal testing could be justified on the basis of the good it does for hu
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To anyone with an ounce of self respect and sense, it is obvious that "god" (as generally described in the west) is essentially a lie created by men to simultaneously instill both fear and hope in their fellow men. This lie grew with the success of the organizations that promoted it into the lynchpin of the major western/formal religions of today (except Buddhism).
This doesn't even start with some of the abhorrent things t
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Do you believe that I should get to, for example, kill and eat people less intelligent than me? Or perform painful experiments on them? Or wipe them them because I want to build and sell houses on the land where they're living now?
Well clearly not YOU. We are talking *advanced* brains here. So, steven hawking is free to
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The name itself, "natural selection", is somewhat misleading. Natural selection does not imply lack of human intervention. On the contrary, humans are part of, influence, are influenced by, and are subject to natural selection and evolution. Therefore, you are wrong to think that natural selection is only such if we stand aside and let nature do its will. That is the fallacy of the Social Darwinist as Divine Right Theorist: Success must take intervention and attempts of change into account in order for it to be truly objective.
Sorry, I went on a limb there, didn't I?
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Informative)
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From their website [baiji.org]:
(Emphasis mine.)
Here is some information [eawag.ch] on the staff at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.
Not to discount your source, but I'd hope that they have a bit more knowledge about the issue than your associate professor.
And please, /.ers, stop knee-jerking. That's not what geeks do.
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Funny)
not only did the people who put it together get paid slave wages...
Man. Think how much cheaper our stuff from China would be if those silly Chinese stopped paying wages to their slaves. Sounds like they need an efficiency expert - or at least a dictionary.
You think the two Bob's would be available?
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you implying that I should feel bad about buying something that creates a job in a part of the world that desperately needs them? What is a slave wage to you may be a godsend to the worker. To quote Sowell [wikipedia.org]: "The real minimum wage is zero [unemployment]."
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The same is true about the expensive DVD player you just bought.
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Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
Overloards (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Overloards (Score:5, Insightful)
Try pulling the stick out of your ass before you go judging others.
I can only say... (Score:2)
Well done, humans...
Did they say 'So long, and thanks for all the fish'?
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat after me: Twenty Million Years
Yeah, they just happened to have been naturally selected for extinction now, nevermind that we KNOW exactly what the cause of their decline has been, and that we KNOW it is because of OUR artificial impact on their natural environment.
You couldn't have picked a worse place or time to pull that steaming pile of shit out.
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Funny)
Well that was plenty of enough time to evolve into something that can develop an industrial civilization and subjugate all other sentient beings.
If they didn't want to go extinct they could have spent all that time developing their own space program and left.
Or nuclear weapons depending if they were not in a "good mood" kind of species.
Re: Embraceable Monoculture (Score:5, Insightful)
Marginalizing an important issue like biodiversity is fun isn't it?
This is
It stands to reason a biologic monoculture carries with it even more dire consequences than software. Our best interests are served to ensure there are as many species as possible walking/crawling/swimming around.
Let me give you an example. Bees. The American commercial bee population is a monoculture. In California the central valley bee population has been decimated by a disease that the bee keepers can no longer control. Guess what? No tree nut harvest. How about the other plants that bees pollinate? http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Now, what happens when it's cows or corn? Rice? Wheat? Please re-examine this belief carefully and mod parent down.
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Did it occur to you that bee monoculture was a problem until you read that story? Yeah, me neither. See that's the problem. If we could tell which species and ecosystems were important to protect, I'd be right behind you: "pay attention to the ones that matter, and who gives a fuck about the rest?!?!"
But the problem is, we don't know what the hell we're doing. We don't know what species are important, wha
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1. I'm not here to teach you basic biology. Shame on you if you graduated high school without a basic understanding of the food chain.
2. Humans are creating biologic monoculture.
A pandemic WILL come along and without biodiversity we're all dead.
These are historical facts that cannot be argued away.
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet the only species in the entire world that gives a damn about preserving other species is human beings.
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is this: We can pick our actions. We cannot pick their consequences.
Anyone who thinks humans can't have an impact on the environment have their heads so far up their butts that the lump in their throat is their nose.
Our actions or lack of actions do have consequences, and we do have to live with those consequences.
I have no idea what the consequence of this species being lost will be, but I guarantee there will be consequences, and doubt very highly that they will be positive and produce a net gain in the world.
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Re:I can only say... (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference between man and the "natural world" is poetic, not scientific. It is a romantic view, and it is irrational. We view nature as everything other than what we have created. Whenever we talk about nature, it is usually associated with the good and man is associated with the bad. However, when speaking of a scientific phenomenon such as natural selection it is stupid to separate man and nature. We are part of the ecosystem just like every other animal. The "destruction of nature" IMO is only dangerous as far as it affects us. The world is a cruel and harsh place, with or without humans. Extinction happens. Life on Earth was here long before we emerged, and it will be here long after we are gone.
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If ALL selection were natural selection, there wouldn't be any point in coining the term 'natural selection' instead you would use the word 'selection'.
Well, the "natural" part of "natural selection" is supposed to mean that it isn't purposefully chosen. It's meant to run parallel but contrast with the breeding of animals for specific purposes.
Re:I can only say... (Score:5, Funny)
Agent Smith? Is that you?
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I have yet to see a parasite anywhere that gives a rats ass about its host. For that matter, I've never seen any animal care about its effect on the environment. So, say what you will about man, but we are the only species on the planet that cares for other species (pets, PETA, conservation organizations and so on), recognizes its own impact on the environment and tries to do something about
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But in the grand scheme of things, we're more likely to be classified as a 'parasite' on the planet since 'modern' civilizations haven't been able to live in harmony with the environment we occupy.
No animal intentionally lives in harmony with their environment. The only reason humans are causing a mass extinction rather than any other animal, is because we're considerably more efficient, so much so that we're in a different league entirely to other animals. The reason we're having problems is because of our success as a predator; we have to reign in our power considerably in order to prevent the destruction of the environment around us. Few species are capable of such restraint.
How are your nice morality-safe leather shoes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, just to clarify a few things, please lay out your moral framework, as it relates to which living creatures it's OK to kill, and by what means. If it's a moral issue, that should be very simple for you to describe, since surely you're not basing that notion on any mixed premises or anything.
Are you a vegan? And if so, what steps are you taking to make sure that a particular sub-species of earthworm that lives only in a little v
Re:How are your nice morality-safe leather shoes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Never met one. Every hunter I know goes to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals they eat - which live in the wild and pretty much never die of old age - meet a rather instantaneous end. Do you eat fish? When was the last time you saw to it that your salmon had a nice peaceful death, or a completely abrupt one? Hooking or netting a fish is a painful, panicky thing, just like capturing crabs, or running cattle into a chute for slaughter. I take very seriously my opportunity and responsibility to take wild game in an ethical manner.
I also participate in keeping the eastern seaboard whitetail deer population under control. Since the natural predators are gone from suburbia, and such developments create ideal deer habitat, you wind up with many times the population of deer that were present even 300 years ago. When poor weather happens, or during the rut, you get vast number of these animals moving across highways or gathering in unnatually large herds. The result is painful (and sometimes drawn-out) death by injury from a vehicle, or very high rates of disease transmission from over crowding. People who want deer to live like that are sadists (to use your word). People who take the role that wolves used to play (in keeping the herds properly thinned out) not only are doing the species a service, but are also putting into their freezers some very healthy, lean meat that isn't soaked in steroids and anti-biotics, and which didn't involve huge farming operations (which burn tons of fuel and drench the soil with fertalizers) to raise and transport. While performing this little service, we (hunters) also pay large sums of money into state coffers, and support all sorts of wildlife conservation programs. Hunters do more to ensure the long term viability of wildlife (from ducks to deer to foxes and wild turkey) than most any other group.
Since you so obviously want everyone to know that you are a sadist you must be even more deranged than the average hunter.
Says the anonymous coward.
I'm more than happy to tell people where the holiday meal they're eating came from. In my family, it's nice pheasant appetizers followed by a really good venison roast. All taken by me, in the field, while on my two feet. While I'm at it, I pick up trash, dispose of old abandoned barbwire, report poachers to the game wardens, tell farmers what I've seen on their back 40, and reduce - by at least a few meals - the demand for factory farming and all of the waste that goes with it.
So, since you're a vegetarian, tell me everything you know about how the soybean farmers you buy from don't ever shoot the varmits that dig holes in their crop sections. Tell me how they tuck each groundhog and jackrabbit into bed every night. Do you sleep better at night knowing that the farmers you deal with use special combines that are guaranteed not to slowly crush voles, mice, and other small mammals as they drive over those animals' home turf? Oops! I forgot. That's simply not true, is it? Tell me what you know about the "organic" operations that, none the less, still practice ditch-to-ditch farming, thus reducing the very habitat that would provide homes for grouse or quail. You know, nature's little pest-bug patrol. In fact, tell me what you know about any of this whatsoever, since your previous comment would imply that you're an ignorant fool that thinks all food is produced by extracting it from rainbows, and delivered by My Little Pony to your grocery store. Hunters aren't sadists. But people who eat meat and wear leather without every personally doing the work of producing it are: cowards (and usually shrill, hypocritical asses, as well).
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See, historically it's been hunters that have been the first to move to protect habitats and watersheds essential to wildlife. They see firsthand the consequences when these are lost. You can call it enlightened self interest, but it's really more than that. It's a drive to preserve the legacy of the outdoors, to keep things pristine and healthy for future generations to enjoy. That's the very thing that moved Teddy Roosevelt (and avid hunter and sport
running cattle into a chute... (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought cows went happily to their these days, ever since that autistic woman redesigned the slaughterhouses.
See BBC Horizon programme "The Woman Who Thinks Like A Cow"...
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Sometimes a little rhetorical absurdity works, I think. All I'm doing is challenging the anonymous coward to actually spell out the distinction between the thought he probably never gives to the vast number of critters that die in industrial agriculture, vs. one that can't survive proximity to human existance. Just because you can't do something perfectly doesn't mean you should be paralyzed into doing nothing, of course.
it is immoral to kill conscious beings
Sen
Re:I can only say... (Score:4, Insightful)
article also extintict (Score:2, Interesting)
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The requested URL (science/06/12/13/1731222.shtml) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
But really, the best way to bring them back is to make them profitable. So... the answer is a "swim with the white dolphins" exhibit in China. Then, if the place can sell the swim with the dolphin experience for 200 bucks, people will start breeding and stop killing white dolphins!!
Perfect!
I just have one question! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I just have one question! (Score:5, Funny)
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Not as good as California Condor, but much better than Giant Panda.
Idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
Very skilled idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to give credit where credit is due, though. The stupidity of all the organizations - from Greenpeace to the Chinese Government - that could have made a difference but chose not to make a difference that mattered is not the mundane stupidity we see in everyday life. This is a highly trained, highly refined breed of stupidity that only the truly gifted hand-wringer could develop.
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I'd believe that if it weren't for the extremely large number of pirates operating in Chinese waters. Assuming said pirates aren't operating with the full knowledge of the Government, of course.
And are pirates operating in the Yangtze river where this species of dolphin lives? Also, my guess is pirates know how to play the game so they don't get caught. I kinda doubt the greenpeace guys, or other environmental groups know how to do this.
the Government is unlikely to have made any serious effort to stop a
Ironic Article Timing (Score:5, Funny)
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deadmammals++;
livingmammals--;
deadmammals++;
Victory! (Score:2)
White Dolphin "Functionally" Extinct?! (Score:2)
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heartbreaking (Score:3, Interesting)
- Last Chance to See
, which is really an amazing book for those of you who haven't read it. The sadness of this situation will no doubt be marred by countless slashdot posts by the rabid anti-environmental right who tend to post on these sorts of stories.Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is heartbreaking.
In the end it doesn't matter if your political views are left or right. Extinction is threatening a great multitude of species and sooner or later you will be affected negatively. Regardless of who you are or how you define affected.
I agree. (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as people may want to celebrate this, or at least gloat, about the weak dying off and this being part of the "natural cycle" I say that's just a bit sick and way too short sighted.
I'm an environmentalist for many reasons chief among them is that I'm selfish. No matter how much we may like to hide in our offices we depend, completely depend, upon the life on the earth around us. Between Dolphins dying in the Yangtse, to the sheer number of ocean species that will die as the ice retreats the web we depend on is, strand by strand, being cut. Sitting around and saying "I told you so" to each other will do no good. Either we all (all animals) survive or we don't but resorting to simple stories gets us nowhere.
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20 million years seems like a pretty good run (Score:4, Funny)
So long (Score:4, Funny)
'60s TV reference alert (Score:5, Funny)
Last Chance to See (Score:2, Interesting)
Douglas Adams wrote "Last Chance to See...", with naturalist Mark Carwardine, and one of the endangered species they sought out was....
The Baiji river dolphin.
And now, the last chance has passed. I miss Mr. Adams, but I'm glad he didn't have to see it.
- j
I blame George Bush (Score:2, Funny)
He and the GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS killed the white dolphin
it probably drowned because all the ice on the Yangtzee thawed thanks to Halliburton.
All you stupid Christian idiots probably think Osama bin Laden did it.
Even though there is NO connection between 911 and white dolphins!
Cataloguing DNA for future use (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cataloguing DNA for future use (Score:4, Interesting)
While it is not as dramatic as aliens saving human DNA without any of our culture, many animals don't function well if they don't have their parents (or other members of their species) to teach them how to survive.
Combine it with needing the rest of their habitat, and it is almost meaningless to talk about trying to "preserve" the species that way.
Re:Cataloguing DNA for future use (Score:5, Informative)
Their mission is to "The ALL Species Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years - a human generation."
A Wired article http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,50942
Douglass Adams (Score:5, Interesting)
I love how the publicity for the dolphins led to a media circus that resulted in them actually being considered a delicacy in the area.
Choice quotes from the book here: Douglas Adams: Last Chance to See Quotes [quotegeek.com]
Huh (Score:4, Funny)
I kid, I kid.
Charlie Tuna mourns (Score:5, Funny)
I won't believe it until... (Score:3, Funny)
So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish (Score:3, Funny)
Still time to save the finless (Score:5, Interesting)
Alongside the search for the Baiji, the scientists surveyed also the population of the endemic Yangtze Finless Porpoise, and the total was less than 400. The situation of the finless propoise is just like that of the baiji 20 years ago, sais Wang Ding, deputy director of the Institute of Hydrobiology Wuhan. Their numbers are declining at an alarming rate. If we do not act soon they will become a second Baiji, said Wang Ding, deputy director of the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Science in Wuhan
http://www.baiji.org/expeditions/1/overview.html [baiji.org]
Douglas Adams wrote about the baiji dolphin (Score:5, Informative)
The late Douglas Adams (along with Mark Carwardine) wrote a book titled Last Chance to See about a number of animals on the brink of extinction. The chapter Blind Panic was all about the baiji dolphin's predicament. Practically blind, the baiji dolphin relied sonar to navigate the Yangtze river - the trouble is that the Yangtze is really busy and hence noisy and polluted. The baiji didn't stand a chance, though from the book it seemed that the Chinese did put a lot of effort into trying to save them.
Scott
The only animals that matter... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only animals that matter are the cow, the pig, and the chicken. They'll never go extinct from environmental factors because we humans have taken over their care and feeding (and eating.)
There may be a moral argument for keeping a species from extinction, but there's usually a financial argument for killing just one more. Every time a poacher kills an Elephant, his family gets to eat, or he gets to buy a new car. There will always be people for which finance trumps morals. The rain forests aren't being cleared because people hate trees, it's because they need more room for cows, pigs, and chickens.
Personally, I'm sad to see another species go extinct, but in reality, it will have no impact on my life that there are no more white dolphins in China.
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Complex organisms that have evolved over millions of years are not just externalities! Hopefully before too long humans will realise that breeding populations of genes have immense value, even for purely selfish reasons.
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If you really believe that, you are staggeringly ignorant. Don't you think plants need insects to pollinate them, birds to spread their seeds for instance? Good luck feeding the cows, pigs and chickens without the plants. But even if you are only talking about large animals, biodiversity is important and more fragile tha
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Our intellects all got assimilated into a giant hive-mind computer about 42 years ago. We just *think* we're still on Terra. I guess you can call it life, but it ain't carbon-based.
-b.
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Re:Why do we care all that much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most importantly though, because the planet just got a little less interesting and wondrous.
Re:Why do we care all that much? (Score:5, Funny)
Because maybe one of those extinct species was good at statistics.
Re:Why do we care all that much? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:really... (Score:5, Funny)
That's not true...We take the Lexus to the environmental rally on Sundays, Saturday is Hummer day.
Re:really... (Score:5, Funny)
I wish.
Oh, you meant the car. Sorry.
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If it becomes a trend (I know, TFA said "first mammalian species in 50 years" - but what about the non-mammal species?) then it's worrisome. We need other species on the planet to survive, not to mention that an Earth without other animals would be damn boring.
Cheers, -b.
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that's such bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
so therefore, i should not be held accountable, right?
accountability and responsibility: what do those concepts mean to you?