Baiji Dolphin

[jj]

diplodocus wrote:
> so sorry I missed the 'thylacine' and the passenger pigeon, but
> I don't know if they were caused by mankinds activities
They were. Hunting.


> I'm sure if you asked most people to name a major extinction in
> living memory they wouldn't come up with those without a google
> search
Both are given in GCSE Biology classes as 'classic' exemplars of extinction.

What worries me more is the tendency [subconsciously alluded to by your
good self] to concentrate on so-called 'higher' species- the rest of
the biota [i.e. most of it] is equally if not more important, and removal of
ANY species from a food-web has immediate and drastic inplications for all
the others.
Thousands of insects are now extinct entirely as a result of human activity;
my particular obsession is the wholesale extinction of species-flocks- the
copepods of Lake Baikal [pollution], the galaxiid 'Austral Trout' of New
Zealand [introduction of Northern brown- and rainbow-trout], and even
the fantastically-diverse cichlid fish flock of Lake Victoria is down from a
count in the 70s of some 200 species, to about 40 [competing species/
overfishing/destruction of habitat].

[jj]

Their motto seems to be 'if it's wet, eat it'.

[Deuce Bigolo]

true

Even more so,if its eating our fish kill it

Never seen a more disgraceful scene than them hauling a fishing net full of dolphins into shallow water and clubbing them to death

[jj]

I could [just] about stomach it if they kept to their own territory, but going
into other waters and nicking all the fish etc just isn't cricket.

[Deuce Bigolo]

Only a matter of time before the seas are all but fished out

You've got the indonesians killing everything down the western australian coast,the japanese down the east and south doing research...pure baloney

The bribery that they are using to re-start whaling with land locked members is scandalous but typical of their much hyped honor system

[diplodocus]

i certainly never suggested that extinction of other species was an issue, I would suggest a lot of other extictions of insects for example are less noticable to the general population and it's only the scientific community who really notice these events and their impact

The point I was making is that this is a very visible extinction caused by man when these issues are much more in peoples minds these days and it's pretty depressing that we can still let it happen

I did biology up to A level and don't recall those examples you gave, maybe that part of my brain is also extinct!

[Tequila_Woods]

Cuz all them chinks fucking eating em and selling their skins n shit. Not good crack at all !furious!

[diplodocus]

''i certainly never suggested that extinction of other species was an issue''

that should read 'was not an issue', before warren pipes up