Kenders' Musings

..well, not really. After all one cannot say farewell to a species that is now extinct.

The Yangtze River Dolphin, one of only four exclusively fresh water dolphins in the world is now "functionally extinct" says a scientist that conducted a six week 2000 mile survey of the Yangtze river without spotting even one of the creatures.

This is exacerbated by China's explosive growth, lax environmental rules and large hydrological projects.

One the one hand this doesn't bode well for China, as a river that can't sustain the dolphin probably won't be able to sustain people either. That's just common sense.

On the other hand I am not going to feel bad about the chinese getting into a bind. They made their bed, now they gotta sleep in it. Maybe if they are busy trying to figure out how to take care of the 6% of the worlds population that lives next to the Yangtze they'll be too busy to continue to build up their military with an eye towards being the big kid on the block.

And that can't be a bad thing for us.

On the third hand (hey, whaddya want? River pollution does funny things) this just shows that animals that can adapt will survive, and those that can't don't.

I mean, come on, the damned thing was mostly blind and relied on sonar for finding food? So what did we lose here? I blind mammal.

There is a reason that animals have eyes, and those that lose that sense usually end up dying because of it.

Trust me, nature knows what she's doing, folks.