Baiji have been generally found in eddy counter-currents below meanders and channel convergences (Hua et al. 1989, Zhou and Li 1989, Zhang et al. 2003). They are known to prey on fish of many sizes and various species, including both surface and bottom feeders (Chen et al. 1997).

The Baiji is endemic to the Yangtze River of China. Some individuals were seen in the Qiantang River, immediately south of the Yangtze, after the great flood of 1955 but they disappeared after construction of a hydropower station in 1957 (Zhou 2009). Baijis also occurred in Dongting and Poyang Lakes (Zhou et al. 1977, Chen et al. 1980) but disappeared from both of these appended water bodies of the Yangtze by the 1990s (Yang et al. 2000, Zhang et al. 2003). Their upstream limit in the Yangtze declined from the Three Gorges area approximately 35 km above Gezhouba Dam near Yichang in the 1940s to approximately 170 km below the dam site near Jingzhou (formerly called Shashi) in the 1990s (Zhang et al. 2003, Zhou 2009). These dolphins were once observed as far downstream as the river mouth near Shanghai (Zhou and Li 1989). No dolphins were found downstream of Jiangyin, located 256 km upstream of the mouth, during surveys in 1997-99 (Zhang et al. 2003). During surveys in the late 1990s, Baijis were found mainly in several segments of the Yangtze between Tongling and Dongting Lake, such as the Tongling section, the Poyang Lake mouth area, and the Honghu section (Zhang et al. 2003). Turvey et al. (2010) concluded from community interviews along the length of the Yangtze River that while the Baiji steadily declined in abundance, this decline “was not associated with any major contraction in geographical range across the middle–lower Yangtze drainage, even in the decade immediately before probable global extinction of the species.” Hazy video footage taken in the Tongling area of the Yangtze in 2007 may have been a Baiji but the species identification could not be confirmed. Also, during the last two years there have been unconfirmed reports of sightings made by a team of student volunteers and older fishermen near Tongling (Wang Ding, unpubl. data).

In China, the Baiji is designated in the First Category of National Key Protected Wildlife Species and has full legal protection throughout its range. Protection from deliberate killing or injury appears to have been effective but, as noted under Threats, prohibitions on harmful fishing methods were generally not very effective and Baijis continued to suffer from the mortality, injury, and health impairment caused by the other threats listed.

For several decades, those involved in trying to save the Baiji could not reach consensus on whether conservation should focus principally on in situ efforts to manage threats or on capturing some Baijis from the wild and moving them to a captive or semi-captive environment (IWC 2001, Reeves et al. 2003). From the late 1980s onwards, the primary strategy to prevent the Baiji's extinction was to capture as many dolphins as possible and to introduce them into "semi-natural reserves," one of which (Tongling) was approved by the Chinese government in the 1980s, and the other (Shishou) in the 1990s. The approach of using semi-natural reserves as components of a broad-based conservation strategy was endorsed by international meetings of scientists in 1986 (Perrin and Brownell 1989) and 1993 (Ellis et al. 1993, Zhou et al. 1994). By 2005, establishment of an ex situ breeding population under semi-natural conditions was regarded as the essential short-term goal for the continued survival of the species (Braulik et al. 2005, Reeves and Gales 2006, Turvey et al. 2006, Wang et al. 2006, Yang et al. 2006). This was premised on the assumption that the total population of the species was small and declining rapidly and that the factors responsible for the species’ decline (severe habitat degradation; rolling hook, electric and explosive fishing; and boat strikes) were still at work and may have been increasing. The favoured site for establishing this population was the Tian-e-zhou National Baiji Reserve, a 21 km oxbow appended to the Yangtze near Shishou City, Hubei Province, which since 1990 has supported a translocated breeding population of Yangtze Finless Porpoises. However, the expectation that sufficient numbers of Baijis could be caught and placed in the reserves to establish a viable ex situ population proved unrealistic. Six capture expeditions, each lasting 2-3 months, were conducted between Chenglingji and Gongan in the 1990s but Baijis proved extremely difficult to locate, track, and capture. In 1995, a female Baiji was caught and released in the Shishou reserve. Less than seven months later her carcass was found entangled in the escape prevention net at the outlet of the reserve. At that time, one other Baiji was in captivity – a male (Qi Qi) that had been rescued from fishing gear in 1980 and rehabilitated. Qi Qi remained alone in his dolphinarium tank at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan until he died in 2002

The Scientific Committee of the IWC reviewed the status of the Baiji in 2000, but members were unable to reach consensus on whether further attempts at live-capture should be made (IWC 2001). The IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group recommended in 2003 that: (1) available resources should be devoted to eliminating the known threats to the species in its natural habitat; (2) immediate action should be taken at national, provincial and local levels to fully enforce the bans on rolling hooks and electric fishing; and (3) if the capture/translocation effort continues, capture operations should be improved to prevent dolphin injury or mortality, water quality in the reserve should be kept at a high standard, and Finless Porpoises should be removed to ensure against deleterious interactions between them and the Baiji(s) (Reeves et al. 2003). In the early 2000s, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture developed a Baiji conservation plan emphasizing the ex situ approach (Ministry of Agriculture 2001).

The Yangtze region is home to approximately 10% of the world’s human population and the Yangtze River has been undergoing progressive ecological deterioration for many decades. The Baiji is the victim not of active persecution but of incidental mortality resulting from massive-scale human environmental impacts, primarily uncontrolled and unselective fishing (Turvey et al. 2007)

Conservation actions for Baijis may be too late to prevent its extinction. However, such actions can be justified by the fact that almost any substantial conservation measures in the Yangtze will benefit the Critically Endangered Yangtze Finless Porpoise, which is the world’s only freshwater porpoise and was sympatric with the Baiji before the latter’s disappearance. Research should concentrate on confirming the presence or absence of Baijis through rigorous searching effort. This effort should include the range-wide survey planned for November to December 2017 from Yichang to Shanghai in both the upstream and downstream directions (for double coverage on both sides of the river) using visual observers with high-powered binoculars and an acoustic search with a towed hydrophone to listen for Baiji whistles and clicks.  Searching effort should also include more intensive surveys using both visual and acoustic techniques in the area around Tongling where recent unconfirmed observations of Baijis were reported. If a Baiji is found during any of these surveys, the conservation recommendations made by the IUCN Cetacean Specialist Group in 2003 (see above) would remain valid.

The Baiji is listed on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).