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AO: Baiji

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The Baiji, (aka Yangzhe River Dolphin, White Flag Dolphin) were/are freshwater dolphins found only in China's Yangzhe River system, that have suffered a serious population decline in the midst of China's industrialization.

I say were/are because late in 1996, after a fruitless effort to find any, they were declared "functionally extinct" [link] , though there was a confirmed sighting of one in August 2007. Unfortunately, experts don't believe that that is enough to save them from true extinction. The kind of changes that China would have to undergo to reverse the change in the Yangzhe river would be difficult to do, to say the least, and take too long to do the dolphins any good.

And I did this just in time for the Olympics! I wanted to play on one of their Chinese names (White Flag Dolphin) by giving it a flag to carry, then thought, heck, why not make it an Olympic flag.

Its kind of a bittersweet double message.
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Nasdreks's avatar
These were one of my favorite animals. I heard the story about these dolphins going extinct, and I got so mad! Freshwater dolphins are so unusual and rare and for them to just die because of nothing more than greed...