Countless poets in history have left poems here, such as Li Bai, "The apes on both sides of the strait can't stop crying, and the canoe has passed Chung Shan Man." Such a familiar sentence.
Since the construction of 1994, the Yangtze River Reservoir has existed for 28 years. During this period, no one has fished the fish in it. Many people who care about the Yangtze River are curious. After so many years, are these fish doing well? Did you let yourself grow?
Fish in the Yangtze River
The most common fish in the Yangtze River should be the four major fish, also known as the four major freshwater fish, which are grass carp, herring, bighead carp and silver carp.
Some people will wonder why there are no carp. This is because in the Tang Dynasty, it was the royal family of Li Tang, and carp was homophonic, so people were not allowed to eat carp. It was also in the Tang Dynasty that the breeding technology was improved and the scale of domestic fish farming increased, so these four kinds of fish naturally settled on the throne of the four major fish.
The characteristics of the four big fish are strong adaptability, strong disease resistance, strong reproductive ability and, more importantly, fast growth. Even if these fish are put into the river, they can adapt quickly and become domestic wild mixed.
Freshwater fish are all radial fin fish. According to the characteristics of radial fin fish, their bodies can actually grow indefinitely, provided that there is enough space and food and no natural enemies.
Evolution of fish "ancestor"
The Three Gorges Reservoir has not been fished for 28 years, and the space of more than 30 billion cubic meters is completely large enough, and it has been artificially fed during this period. It is reasonable to say that these fish can grow to a size that is not found in nature.
However, some people also refute that the fish in the Three Gorges Reservoir can form an ecosystem by themselves, so there are still carnivorous fish, so there will be no celestial bodies. The fiercest carnivorous fish in the Yangtze River is sturgeon, but sturgeon is a migratory fish, which is not suitable for raising in reservoirs. Catfish and Siniperca chuatsi have replaced them as top predators.
In fact, as early as 2004, the Three Gorges Reservoir had found 400 kg of herring, which was more than 2m long. In 20 15 years, 300 kg of bighead carp, 100 kg of catfish and 200 kg of mandarin fish were discovered one after another, all of which were comparable to the height of adult men. It can be seen that no one has fished in these 28 years, and these guys have grown very big regardless of their niche.
Since it has grown so big, why not fish? How many catties of fish are there! It's not that people don't fish, but that the Yangtze River is now banned from fishing, and the fish in the Three Gorges Reservoir will be released back to the Yangtze River regularly.
The future of giant fish
Then everyone is curious. If hundreds of pounds of big fish in these reservoirs are not caught and allowed to grow, won't they destroy the environment of the reservoir? Isn't there a saying called eat small fish the Big Fish?
The answer is no, first of all, most freshwater fish don't have sharp teeth. Even if they grow very big, their main food is plankton, and at most they will swallow small fish in one bite. However, small fish live in a different space from big fish to a certain extent, and fish spawn a lot at a time, so they will not be eaten on a large scale.
On the contrary, the bigger the fish, the more material it can provide for the whole ecology and nourish more small fish after death. That's why we haven't fished the fish in the Three Gorges Reservoir for 28 years.
Moreover, we also have experts from the fishery department to observe the situation of fish schools in the reservoir at all times. Once there are too many fish schools, some of them will be introduced into the Yangtze River to update the gene exchange of fish in time and ensure the biodiversity of the Yangtze River.