Witness to Extinction

• The extinction of the Yangtze River Dolphin or baiji, made famous by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine in Last Chance to See, made headline news around the world - the shocking realization that we had let such a beautiful animal disappear, despite the supposed efforts of big conservation organizations worldwide
• Compelling, heartfelt eyewitness account by a young naturalist battling against the failures and bureaucracy of large organizations
• Describes the natural history of the dolphin, and the legends surrounding it on the banks of the Yangtze
• A tale, too, of how massive scale industrialization in China is devastating the environment and its extraordinary wildlife
• Turvey played a key role in the final stages to identify whether the baiji was gone, and was the lead author in the research paper that confirmed its extinction
• Gives examples of successful conservation and looks forward: we can learn from this and save other precious creatures from oblivion - a plea from the heart for action

Readership: Lovers of natural history, conservation, and those connected with, or concerned about, endangered species. Also general readers of popular science.

Samuel Turvey, Research Fellow at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London

"Turvey weaves natural history, ecology, and politics into a tapestry that illusrates the pattern of human impact across the globe."

"A must-read perspective for those who think of conservation as a vigorous fight to save biodiversity rather than an academic discipline. Written from the point of view of a scientist actively involved in the fight to save the dolphin, the book seethes with personal anger while at the same time being highly scholarly." - Quarterly Review of Biology

Prologue
1: The Goddess of the Yangtze
2: The Amazon of the East
3: Qi Qi
4: A New Hope?
5: The Rarest Animal in the World
6: Everything Is Going to be OK
7: The Politics of Extinction
8: End Game
9: The Hunting of the Snark
10: The Golden Channel
11: So Long, and Thanks For All the Fishing
12: What Have We Learnt?