When they write the environmental history of early 21st-century China, the freshwater dolphin expedition now plying the Yangtze river may be seen as man’s farewell to an animal it once worshipped. A team of the world’s leading marine biologists is making a last-gasp search for the baiji, a dolphin that was revered as the goddess of Asia’s mightiest river but is now probably the planet’s most endangered mammal.

… Few people outside China have heard of the baiji, a light grey, long-snouted river dolphin that relies on sonar rather than its eyes to navigate through the murky Yangtze water. But even more than the panda, the demise of this mammal illustrates the sacrifices that the world’s most populous country has made in its race to grow richer. In the 1950s, there were thousands of baiji in the Yangtze. By 1994, the number fell below 100. This year, there has only been one, unconfirmed, sighting. … Read the full story [PDF].