Yangtze River Dolphin Declared Extinct

Scientists declared China’s Yangtze river dolphin extinct Wednesday after weeks of searching failed to locate even one in 1,000 miles of the busy river.

Sam Turvey, conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London, who led the search, was chief author of the paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society, Biology Letters, which made the announcement.

Two separate teams of scientists in boats spent six weeks scouring the river, The Independent said.

We used a very intensive survey technique. Both of the boats counted the same number of porpoises — we saw everything that was there. We didn’t see a single dolphin, Turvey said.

The study said shipping and accidental injuries from fishing lines were the most likely causes for the extinction of the freshwater dolphin with pale skin and long snout.

The teams counted 19,830 ships on the 1,000 miles of the river they surveyed. The noise of the engines would make the dolphins’ sonar useless, and they were all but blind in the murky water, the report said.