Rare Chinese Dolphin Now Functionally Extinct

I saw the official notice yesterday afternoon, the Chinese River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) is now functionally extinct. This virtually blind dolphin was found only in the Yangtze River, and after a hard fight by conservationists, it appears that the dolphin is now lost, joining the ranks of other animals who have perished in the great extinction event that has been ongoing for most of human history. There may be a few dolphins left, stragglers left behind to live out the rest of their lives, but a recent expedition to find how many of these dolphins were left could not find any (only 7 were found in 1998). If there are in fact any left, the population is likely to be below 25, so even if said dolphins could find each other and breed, they would not be able to keep up their numbers and create enough genetic variation for the species to ultimately survive, similar to the inbreeding that created a genetic bottleneck in cheetahs at the end of the last ice age (cheetahs would likely be even more endangered or extinct if not for human intervention, and they are still vulnerable to many problems). Perhaps sightings of these dolphins will persist here and there (if there are any left at all), but it will be similar to those of the Ivory-billed woodpecker in that it doesn't necessarily mean they've escaped extinction, but rather that the population has been able to just been able to barely hang on but could disappear forever at any day.

I've never seen a Chinese River Dolphin, and that is part of the reason for my sadness. This wasn't a species that appears to have been on the decline anyway or was in danger of being replaced by competitors, but rather pollution and manmade problems, the axe finally falling when the Three Gorges Dam was construction began in 1994 (it's still not fully functional), forever altering and endangering the animals. Now, one of the most interesting and rare of cetaceans is lost forever, with the other varieties of river dolphins in danger of extinction as well. Surely, the world has been robbed of yet another treasure, and I can only wonder what devastation will continue to be wrought in the name of technological and economic "progress." Will there come a time when my children can only see a tiger in a zoo, or my granchildren can only watch one in an old National Geographic special? Surely, no one I've ever encountered desires mass extinction, but such concerns are not very deep and desire to actually make any changes for the better are almost nil. I was shocked to see a good number of people consider recycling a waste of time in the recent ProU survey (this, of course, after my shock that not all states recycle), and I am increasingly disillusioned with this country because of our wastefulness. Americans consume more and waste more than any other people in the world, living in a land of excess when others are starving and always asking for more, and I am not beyond this label myself. I can't even begin to imagine the ecological nightmares future generations will have to face, probably looking back at those alive today as careless, ignorant fools who proceeded to turn the world into a smouldering husk before even thinking twice about what we were doing.