1984, that is an unforgettable year in the memory of the Chinese people. The spring breeze of reform and opening up has begun to bear fruit, and the whole country is thriving. From that year onwards, the Yangtze River Sturgeon Research Institute, funded by the Three Gorges Group, began to release fish fry into the river on a regular basis. By April 2022, a cumulative total of more than seven million Chinese sturgeon had entered the Yangtze River basin.

But why is the Chinese sturgeon still a critically endangered Class 1 protected animal to the point where it continues to be released every year, given that so much work has been done on it?

The answer is very simple, those who enter the Yangtze River sturgeon did not take root, but soon to death.

So what exactly is the water environment of the Yangtze River that makes it so difficult for Chinese sturgeon to survive in it?

First of all, the pollution of the Yangtze River water quality. Since the reform and opening up, China's level of economic development, although the quality of the ` leap, especially the Yangtze River coastal economic zone, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and other major cities as a string, has become the attraction of foreign investment, open to the outside world of the golden waterway. From upstream to downstream, busy cargo ships and cruise ships can be seen everywhere along the Yangtze River.

But at the same time, the Yangtze River's ecological environment is suffering unprecedented damage. Not to mention the industrial wastewater from the factories along the river, the exhaust emissions from the ships on the river are enough to cause underwater plants and some fish to suffocate.

And as mentioned earlier, as a high-level predator of the "King of the Yangtze" for the environmental requirements of the very high, even if the low-level creatures can adapt to the waters they may not be able to do a normal survival, not to mention that even their prey are difficult to accept the extreme environment. Although after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the Chinese sturgeon has a variety of harsh environmental response, but only for human technology is still little known.

In addition, the Chinese sturgeon has the same rigorous requirements for mating and spawning. Every year, the Yangtze River sturgeon spawning season in the tenth month of the solar calendar, and they will not be in place for reproductive activities, but like many anadromous fish return to the upper reaches of the river. However, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and other water conservancy projects on the Yangtze River has created a huge obstacle to the anadromous journey of these fish.

As a result of the water conservancy project's obstruction, the Chinese sturgeon's cross[mating] adult species can only be lifted upstream with the current when the gates are opened and the ship is open, and gradually find suitable spawning sites. In this way, the original in the spawning is not efficient Chinese sturgeon is facing a more difficult situation, which in turn leads to their reproduction of a new generation of the task can only rely more on the artificial release of fish fry.

Of course, compared with these reasons, thousands of years of fishing behavior of the Yangtze River fishermen is the biggest hidden danger of the number of sturgeon year after year encountered crisis. Because of the high nutritional value of Chinese sturgeon, and the huge size, inhabiting the bottom of the river, not easy to catch, so their prices have been speculated to a very high position.

Driven by profit, many Yangtze River fishermen have gone on a fishing spree for Chinese sturgeon by inventing improved nets and buying new boats. Although the Chinese sturgeon has long been listed as an endangered protected animal, but due to the negligence of the legal control factors, still let the wild Chinese sturgeon appeared in some hotel tables.

Moreover, even if the sturgeon are not killed directly, other small fish are salvaged in large quantities, making it difficult for them to survive without food.

So, to protect the wild Chinese sturgeon actually need to consider both ways, not only in the incremental aspect of the annual release of fish fry on time to the Yangtze River Basin, but also in the preservation of the amount of people's fisheries fishing to a certain degree of control.

In 2020, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issued a 10-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, commonly known as the "Yangtze River fishing ban". The program, which was officially implemented on New Year's Day in 2021, focuses on the decline in the number of fish and animals in the Yangtze River Basin. This order, undoubtedly for the protection of wild Chinese sturgeon added a layer of solid legal armor, will be the actual implementation of specific measures to provide a reliable guarantee.

"Fishing ban" promulgated, although the fishermen on both sides of the Yangtze River will cause some economic losses, but I believe that the government has done a good job to compensate for the preparation. Moreover, only when the ecological environment of the Yangtze River is optimized and restored properly can the fishermen truly have endless opportunities for sustainable development.

In the first millennium BC in the Western Zhou period, China's history books on the Chinese sturgeon records. They have accompanied the Chinese nation all the way through history and witnessed the ups and downs of this country's destiny. From the level of sentiment, to protect them is also a way to protect the bloodline of our own civilization. Only everything *** birth *** survival, in order to create the most harmonious and stable global village.

The Yangtze River white sturgeon is declared extinct, so why can't people breed it artificially to avoid extinction?

Gui Qiwei, chief scientist of the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, said: the Yangtze River white sturgeon has not been a successful case of artificial breeding. Previously, due to the lack of technology, hardware conditions, artificial culture of the Yangtze River white sturgeon only survived for a maximum of 29 days, and then all the conditions are available, but we have not captured a live Yangtze River white sturgeon.

If a little earlier, more visionary to the Yangtze River white sturgeon rescue pool repaired, and so the capture of the Yangtze River white sturgeon and then raise it, then the Yangtze River white sturgeon may still have hope. Now we still do a lot of technical reserves, as long as you can still find live Yangtze River white sturgeon, there is a ray of hope.

Can not reproduce is the main reason for the extinction of the Yangtze River white sturgeon. Yangtze River white sturgeon in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River generally spawning, middle and lower reaches of the foraging and fertilization, but the construction of the Gezhouba Dam in 1981 cut off their migratory channel, juvenile Yangtze River white sturgeon can still through the dam to the middle and lower reaches of the foraging, but the adult Yangtze River white sturgeon can not return to the upper reaches of the spawning.

Yangtze white sturgeon caught

The second factor is the development of the Yangtze River fishing industry, so that the big fish and small fish was a net, or directly lead to the death of the Yangtze River white sturgeon, or lead to the Yangtze River white sturgeon food less and less. This is critical, because the Yangtze River white sturgeon is known as the king of freshwater fish, its body length of 7.5 meters, every day need a lot of food to survive, and now the Yangtze River has been designated as no fish class!

The third is shipping, the vibration of the engine ship is very large, more and more ships, interlocking shipping lanes, not only the propellers of the engine ship may directly harm the Yangtze River White Sturgeon, by shipping derived from the channel improvement, reef blowing, shore protection, and other shipping projects on the Yangtze River White Sturgeon habitat impacts are also very large.

In January 24, 2003, the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences received a message, Nanxi, Sichuan, there are fishermen in the Yangtze River accidentally caught a Yangtze River white sturgeon, the Institute of the Chief Scientist Guiqiwei immediately rushed to the local rate of the rescue team, was confirmed to be a tail of about 4 meters long, weighing more than 150 kilograms of female Yangtze River white sturgeon, and there are still a large number of eggs in its abdomen.

Mistakenly caught Yangtze white sturgeon

At that time, the Yangtze white sturgeon was mistakenly caught, and in the fishermen's boat to be moved around, has been seriously injured, the abdomen is all congested, the head and the tail there are obvious scars. It was sterilized and stitched up, and then placed in a nearby net box fish boat.

After a day, the Yangtze River white sturgeon is better, and finally decided to release it, and installed ultrasonic tracking equipment on it. It was intended to be continuously tracked and monitored, but then the signal was eventually lost due to damage to the tracking boat by hitting a reef. Since then, there have been no more reported sightings of the Yangtze River white sturgeon in the country.

In addition, the reduction and fragmentation of habitats caused by lake enclosure, water pollution, urbanization and aquaculture are all important factors that threaten the survival of the Yangtze River white sturgeon.

Water pandas Yangtze River white sturgeon

Woe to the extinction of the Yangtze River white sturgeon, the consequences of its severity is no less than the extinction of the giant panda, is the history of China's biological suffered a heavy blow!

The Yangtze River white sturgeon is officially declared extinct!

The evening of July 21, 2022, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) officially declared the Yangtze River white sturgeon extinction, which means that China's Yangtze River Basin will no longer appear in the wild of the Yangtze River white sturgeon, at the same time, the Earth's animal species is one less species of organisms, but these organisms are not eliminated by the Earth's amount of evolution, but is considered extinct.

The white sturgeon was last seen in 2003 in the Yibin Nanxi section of the Yangtze River, and the Yangtze sturgeon (Dacryocypris spp.) was assessed to be extinct in the wild because of the failure to find juvenile fish in addition to the breeding and releasing populations. White sturgeon extinction root causes are analyzed as follows:

First, illegal fishing

Human beings in order to economic interests, in the past will be a large number of fishing Yangtze River white sturgeon, and at this time the state has not issued a clear ban. The residents around the Yangtze River Basin appear to be fishing for profit, and this phenomenon is a direct cause of the extinction of the wild white sturgeon one of the reasons.

The second is the loss of habitat

Dams built in the Yangtze River Basin blocked their migration routes, and unsustainable sand and gravel mining destroyed their spawning grounds, as well as habitat loss.

There is less hope for the resurrection of the Yangtze white sturgeon. Because there is no mastery of artificial breeding and rearing technology. According to scientists at the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of China's Academy of Fisheries Sciences, the wild Yangtze River white sturgeon has not been a successful case of artificial breeding, before the lack of technology, hardware conditions, artificial breeding of white sturgeon its survival time of up to 29 days.

Due to the deterioration of the ecological environment, the distribution of white sturgeon in the gradual shrinkage of the number is also decreasing year by year, and the individual is getting smaller and smaller, at present, our country has the relevant conditions for aquaculture, but there is no capture of live Yangtze River white sturgeon.

Since 2003, researchers have not found the white sturgeon, and there is no individual survival of its artificial culture. But people still have a line of expectation. Whether or not we will see the Yangtze River white sturgeon again in the future may still be unknown, but some fishermen believe that some waters of the Yangtze River have survived the white sturgeon.

In short, 2022 Yangtze River white sturgeon extinction, in the evening of July 21, the World Conservation Union announced the extinction of the white sturgeon. And the reason for the extinction and human beings have a lot to do, not artificial reproduction is the reason that it is not easy to feed.