“…Historical population estimates for the species ranged from 233,000–338,000 prior to the catastrophic decline of the species, caused by unrestricted hunting that increased throughout the nineteenth century (McClenachan and Cooper 2008). No well-documented sightings postdate 1952, and the species is widely regarded as extinct (Mignucci-Giannoni and Odell 2001, Adam and Garcia 2003, McClenachan and Cooper 2008). This is the only historical example of a marine mammal extinction in the tropics, and one of few species-level extinctions of marine mammals in the historical period, along with the Steller’s sea cow ( Hydrodamalis gigas , North Pacific, last recorded in 1768), the Japanese sea lion ( Zalophus japonicus , East Asia, last recorded in 1951), and the Yangtze River dolphin or Baiji ( Lipotes vexillifer , Yangtze River of China, probably extinct within the past decade) (Flannery and Schouten 2001, Wolf et al 2007, Turvey 2009, Turvey et al 2007).…”