Author: Matilda Williams
We all love dolphins. Fun- loving water mammals springing out of the water with joy, interacting beautifully with humans.
In China, there is a species of dolphin that could only be found in the Yangtze River for 20 million years, undisturbed. The all of a sudden, China became one of the most polluted countries in the world, and so did the Yangtze River.
In the 1950s, before China’s industrialisation, there was estimated to be a healthy 6000 Baiji dolphins left. In the 1980s, it was estimated that there were only a few hundred baiji left. In 1990, the baiji was critically endangered, and 1997 there were only 13 dolphins remaining. In December 2006, they were declared extinct.
Scientists say that this is entirely mankind’s fault. The baiji is the first dolphin in modern times to be declared extinct.
There are over 30 million species of animals out there, and we don’t want this to happen to the rest of our animals. In fact, there is a list of 100 animals that have gone extinct.
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