Act. By Federal Register notice of 17 February 1987, the 

 Service announced that it had reviewed a petition to desig- 

 nate the baiji as endangered and had determined that, based 

 on available information, the proposed listing may be warranted. 

 On 17 April 1987, the Service announced its intention to 

 review the status of the other four river dolphins to deter- 

 mine whether any of these species should be listed as endangered 

 or threatened. 



On 18 May 1988, the National Marine Fisheries Service 

 published a Federal Register notice indicating that, based 

 upon the best available information, it had determined that 

 the Chinese river dolphin is endangered and should be so 

 listed on the U.S. List of Endangered and Threatened Species. 

 On 31 August 1988, the Service published a List of Candidate 

 Vertebrate and Invertebrate Marine Species for listing under 

 the Endangered Species Act. The list included the Amazon, 

 Ganges, Indus, and La Plata river dolphins. 



By the end of 1988, the Chinese river dolphin had not 

 yet been listed as endangered, and no action had been initiated 

 to formally list the other four river dolphin species as 

 either endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species 

 Act. The Commission understands, however, that the final 

 steps necessary to list the Chinese river dolphin will be 

 completed early in 1989 and that consideration then will be 

 given to appropriately listing the other four species. 



Identification of Needed Research and Management Actions 



As noted in previous Annual Reports, the Commission 

 provided funds in 1986 to help convene an international Workshop 

 on the Biology and Conservation of the Platanistoid Dolphins. 

 The Workshop was held 26 October-6 November 1986, in Wuhan, 

 China. The report of the Workshop was completed early in 

 1987 and is expected to be published, along with contributed 

 papers, in 1989 by the Species Survival Commission of the 

 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural 

 Resources. 



One of the Workshop's recommendations was to initiate 

 research to obtain better information on numbers, movement 

 patterns, reproductive biology, feeding habits, and social 

 organization of the baiji. In response to the recommendation, 

 in 1987, the Marine Mammal Commission contributed funds to 

 send a U.S. scientist to China to assist in developing a 

 long-range conservation plan for the baiji. The report from 

 this site visit was submitted to the Commission in February 

 1988. Among other things, the report notes that: damming, 

 dredging, sand bank removal, and fisheries in the Chang jiang 

 (Yangtze) River were jeopardizing the species and its habitat; 

 groups of animals should be recovered from the main body of 



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