Yangtze River Dolphin

Lipotes vexillifer

Yangtze river dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer, is the baiji, a freshwater dolphin known only from the Yangtze River system in China. It had a long narrow beak, rounded flippers, small eyes, a pale blue-gray back, and a lighter underside. Like other river dolphins, it depended heavily on echolocation in turbid water and spent its entire life in large river channels and connected lakes rather than the sea. By the late twentieth century, its range and numbers had collapsed as the Yangtze became more crowded, engineered, and heavily fished.

There is no managed population of Yangtze river dolphins in zoos or breeding centers. The last well-known captive baiji, a male named Qi Qi, died in 2002, and a major 2006 survey found no confirmed survivors; the species is widely treated as critically endangered and possibly extinct, or functionally extinct. Bycatch, boat strikes, underwater noise, pollution, dam construction, sand mining, and prey loss all contributed to the decline. Present human work centers on historical records, occasional survey effort, and applying the lessons of the baiji's loss to Yangtze finless porpoise conservation and river management.