The Baiji is or was a freshwater dolphin found only in the Yangtze River in
China. Nicknamed "Goddess of the Yangtze" in China, the dolphin was also called Chinese River Dolphin, Yangtze River Dolphin, Whitefin Dolphin and Yangtze Dolphin.
The Baiji population declined drastically in decades as
China industrialized and made heavy use of the river for fishing, transportation, and hydroelectricity. Efforts were made to conserve the species, but a late 2006 expedition failed to find any Baiji in the river.
Organizers declared the Baiji "functionally extinct", which would make it the first aquatic mammal species to become extinct since the demise of the Japanese Sea Lion and the Caribbean Monk Seal in the 1950s. It would also be the first recorded extinction of a well-studied cetacean species to be directly attributable to human influence.
Historically the Baiji occurred along 1,700 kilometres (1,100 mi) of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze from Yichang in the west to the mouth of the river, near to Shanghai. This had been reduced by several hundred kilometres both upstream and downstream, and was limited to the main channel of the Yangtze, principally the middle reaches between the two large tributary lakes, Dongting and Poyang. Approximately 12% of the world’s human population lives and works within the Yangtze River catchment area, putting pressure on the river.