After weeks of hunting, a team of international experts has still not found any baiji, a graceful grey dolphin species native to the Yangtze River.

Scientists from six countries have been scouring the waters of the Yangtze for over five weeks, but all they have to show for their efforts are a few suspected sightings.

Leading Chinese researcher Wang Ding said he has witnessed a sharp decline in the baiji population over the past few decades, though he is still unwilling to call the species extinct.

In 1980s, about 400 baiji dolphins lived in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

"We could see the baiji at almost every survey," he said.

The population declined to about 50 at the end of 1990s, and the last confirmed sighting of this endangered species was in September 2004.

Scientists believe that illegal fishing, over-fishing, the booming shipping business on the Yangtze River, environmental pollution and irrigation projects and dams have all contributed to the decline.

The only way to save the species is to capture any surviving baiji dolphins and then transport them to an oxbow reserve adjoining the Yangtze River called the Tian'erzhou Oxbow Elk Nature Reserve in Hubei Province.

(China Daily 12/12/2006 page1)