ON THE BRINK

Qi Qi leads a solitary life, but he is fortunate. He isn't slowly dying in the cesspool that goes by the name of the Yangzi river. There, only a handful of dolphins -- known as baiji -- have survived the never-ending assault on their habitat. Last year more than 50 boats scoured 900 km of the middle and lower stretches of the river in a seven-day inventory exercise. They came up with just 21 dolphins. Even if a few were overlooked, the number surviving can hardly be greater than 30 or 40, says Wang, head of the dolphin department at the institute. "It will be a miracle if we can save this species." The baiji is even rarer and more endangered than the more famous panda, of whom about 1,000 are believed to survive in the wild. Says Wang: "If the panda symbolizes China's plundering of forests, then the baiji stands for the degradation of China's rivers and the ethic of economic growth no matter what the cost to the environment."

One of the biggest threats is the massive Three Gorges Dam in the upper reaches of the Yangzi. The day last November when engineers blocked off river waters to begin phase one of the project was a distressing one at the institute, which is downstream from the construction site. Once the three gorges are flooded, the dolphins will lose about 250 km of irreplaceable habitat. The dam will also raise the water temperature and end seasonal changes in the river level -- both of which will further threaten the baiji.

River dolphins are freshwater cousins of the more familiar ocean-going species. Besides the Yangzi's baiji, varieties are found in the Ganges and Indus rivers in South Asia and the upper reaches of the Amazon in Brazil. They are among the more primitive of the cetaceans, not much different from fossil versions dating back 20 million years. Compared with other dolphins and with their close relative the porpoise, which also live in the Yangzi, they have never really come under pressure to adapt. As recently as a hundred years ago, thousands of the two-meter mammals probably swam in these waters, free from natural predators, feeding on bountiful fish and meandering unimpeded through the various tributaries and large lakes between the three gorges and the Yellow Sea.

Today, the Yangzi is a concrete-banked sewer for the more than 300 million people living along its banks. Thousands of boats ply the waters. The noise from their propellers disorients the dolphins, which navigate by sound. Confused, they are chopped up by propellers or injured in collisions with the vessels. Another peril: the baiji eat fish already poisoned by effluents, or are sometimes impaled on large fish hooks.

Swiss scientist Giorgio Pilleri first raised the alarm about the baiji in the late 1970s. At that time he believed that about 300 still lived in the Yangzi and its branches. As numbers have dwindled, several schemes to preserve the species have been proposed. But implementing them in the chaos of changing, booming China has not been easy. About 80 sq km of the Shishou river, west of Wuhan, were set aside as a sanctuary -- with very limited success. Reproduction programs that have worked well with porpoises have failed with dolphins, which are much more subject to stress.

A male baiji admitted to the Shishou sanctuary two years ago after being found stranded on a sandbank in the Yangzi refused to eat. He died after a few weeks. Experts thought early on that he was love- sick, but a female brought in to keep him company also perished after becoming entangled in the sanctuary's underwater fence. Qi Qi seems relatively happy in his pool at the institute, but a suitable mate has never been found.

The environmentalists have little choice but to make the sanctuaries work as refuges and as breeding grounds. There is no chance the conditions on the main stretch of the Yangzi can be improved fast enough to save the remaining dolphins. The institute pins its hopes on catching about 15 baiji over the next three years and transporting them by helicopter to the Shishou sanctuary. But there are problems. If the dolphins are simply anesthetized, they may sink and drown. And experts still have to work out how to safely transport and rehabilitate such stress-sensitive creatures. Two river sites where about half a dozen dolphins are believed to live will also be turned into reservations, free of fishermen and propellers -- though not of sewage. All this assumes the institute can raise the $3 million (about $200,000 per dolphin) the project will cost.

From his office, Wang can see the premises of the foreign engineering companies that have garnered lucrative contracts to help build the Three Gorges Dam. "They have made so much money from this project," the zoologist says. "They ought to contribute toward saving the creatures they threaten." In another direction stands a different edifice. Possibly anticipating the inevitable, authorities have erected a statue of the dolphin on the banks of the Yangzi. The staff at the hydrobiological institute call it the "Baiji Memorial."