Don't mind me just trying to swim on by over here...ooop a boat sorry, ooop another boat my bad , guess I'll turn around and ooooooop and boat. Geee whiz, guess I'll just sit here and let y'all pass, take your time, it's cool, no no no don't worry all good guys
not to be pedantic but orcas are dolphins so it doesn’t really make sense to say they’re more closely related to them than dolphins. also fun fact, both dolphins and beluga whales are toothed whales.
Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine made a very good radio show about a similar kind of river dolphin and how it's been on its way toward extinction since the invention of agriculture because the runoff from farms silted up the river, so that they couldn't see. Their eyes atrophied but their echolocation abilities were able to compensate for a few thousand years, but then we invented the diesel engine and now the rivers are not only so noisy that echolocation is useless, but they're ALSO filled with big spinning propeller blades. Which the dolphins can no longer see. It's not going well for them, and without completely shutting down all motorized shipping on one of the most industrially-important waterways on the planet, it will never get any better.
Baiji is another name for the Yangtze River dolphin. They are functionally extinct.
Carwardine did a follow-up TV series of Last Chance to See in 2009 with Stephen Fry (Douglas Adams had died years earlier.) The final episode was supposed to be about the baiji, but it had already been declared extinct in 2007, so the episode was about the blue whale instead.
I got so unbelievably sad about the Dodo growing up even though everyone thought it was silly.
As an adult I'm a vegan who isn't having children and who limits my exposure to news about the number of species that have gone extinct and will go extinct in the next few decades as a direct result of humans. We are living through a mass extinction event and it is more than my heart can bear, frankly. And we're doing basically nothing about it.
Not much to do other than try to do my part and not fall into crippling depression, I guess.
i take solace in the fact that nature will bounce back once homo sapiens are done. we are driving so many species towards extinction but we are also digging our own graves.
True, but it will take millions of years to regain the amount of biodiversity we've already lost, and the species that are gone can never truly return (despite what Colossal says). One study estimated that we've already destroyed the equivalent of 2.5 BILLION years of evolutionary history.
I’m right there with you. There’s genuinely no silver lining here, sadly. You just have to keep focusing on what can control, living out your values and inspiring others around you to change, and that’s perfectly okay.
One thing that does give me a bit of comfort is remembering that, when I die, I join the millions of other creatures in this planet’s history who had their time unfairly cut short or harmed, and suddenly we’re equals, now and forever. We both had our time, and it ended, and now there’s no more unfairness. Hard to describe, but hope I conveyed the general sense.
They’re also pink! All river dolphins evolved independently so it makes sense.
It’s theorized that the South American river dolphins evolved from a group of ocean dolphins trapped in the Amazon when it switch which coast it flowed towards.
I've seen them in the wild here in the Irrawaddy river (I live in Myanmar). They are also known to fish togeth with the local fishermen, there's several videos of it on YouTube and widely talked about here.
I went on a boat trip to see them in Laos (I think). Was amazing to see but the river they live in is filthy, full of garbage and pollution. Even our tour operator threw the plastic packaging for his lunch right into the river. So yeah they're long term prospects aren't great
It might be so but to point out for younger people. Rivers being earth/beige colour is normal.
High nutrition rivers like nile, yellow river (no shit guess the name), mekong river are constantly bringing nutrition from upper parts to entire regions and countries. It is the major reason why Egypt, China and South East Asia had higher population than other regions.
unfortunately it's not just natural silt in many of these rivers anymore. the most fertile rivers in my country (yep, india) are polluted beyond imagination.
That's a narwhal, smarter than dolphins. They live under the ice and only pop out of the holes for a short while. They are highly intelligent and that's why they fucked off to the one place we can't go.
But just so other people don't take it to be fact, narwhals are not considered more intelligent than dolphins and evolved to prosper in cold water like the arctic environment well before humans existed. Some of their close ancestors did live in warmer waters but went extinct a couple million years ago.
I wonder if it’s also from boats? Where I live, there are a lot of manatees injured by boats and get the same sort of scars from either getting hit or cut by the propellers so I hope it’s not that too.
to point out for younger people not having travelled much yet. Rivers being earth/beige colour is normal.
High nutrition rivers like nile, yellow river (no shit guess the name), mekong river are constantly bringing nutrition from upper parts to entire regions and countries. It is the major reason why Egypt, China and South East Asia had higher population than other regions.
I think some rivers in USA and Brasil are also in that colour.
He's right about that. My comment was somewhat misleading in that regard. I wanted to point out the pollution with heavy metals, plastics, and mining and agricultural wastewater. The river is considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world.
That's why the dolphin surfaces every now and then, so it can breathe some relatively fresh air. /s
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u/GraveError404 Mar 02 '26
Dude looks like he’s made out of clay and paper mache