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Chinese Sturgeon Spotted in Qiantang River
Fishermen have caught a tail of Chinese sturgeon, a rare variety of fish, at the mouth of the Qiantang River in east China.
Elder fishermen said they can hardly find any Chinese sturgeon in the river since the Xinanjiang Reservoir was built in the northern part of the coastal province in the 1950s.
The reservoir has changed the temperature of water in the river, which is not suitable for the fish to live in.
The 30-centimeter-long fish, with black spots on its back, is a young Chinese sturgeon. It was caught late July but released three days later.
Sun Jianrong, the fisherman who caught the fish, did not know what fish it was until experts from Zhejiang Provincial Nature Museum determined its identity.
The Chinese sturgeon, on the verge of extinction, is on the state's first-class protection list.
Referred to as a kind of "living fossils," the fish is highly valuable for scientific research on geology, ocean and ecology.
The Chinese sturgeon, the largest fish in the sturgeon family, is peculiar to China.
The number of Chinese sturgeons has decreased drastically in recent years due to river pollution, a busier navigation, illegal fishing and building of dams.
The government has taken steps to protect Chinese sturgeons over the past two decades. During 1983 and 1998, millions of fries were put into the Yangtze River for breeding.
In addition, the government has banned the fishing of Chinese sturgeons and controlled pollution to protect the fish, one of the oldest vertebrates on earth.
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