Dolphin squeezed out of existence by activity on river

ON Wednesday, August 8, there was a sad story on RTÉ Radio’s News at One. It was the announcement that the Yangtze River dolphin was extinct.

They are, or were, freshwater dolphins of a pale, off-white colour up to about 2.5m in length with a long, duck-like beak. They were also called baiji. They lived in a 1,700km-long stretch of the Yangtze upstream from Shanghai. They ate large fish, particularly catfish.

Although most dolphin species live in the sea, there are some other river dolphins in the world, such as species in the Amazon, the Ganges and the Indus in Pakistan. They are all more or less endangered.