Aquatic populations in the Yangtze, China’s longest river,
soared yesterday morning as millions of fish fry were released into
the water to help replenish dwindling fishery stocks.
“We are pouring nearly 400 million fry of rare aquatic and
commercially important fish species into the river,” said Minister
of Agriculture Du Qinglin.
The move was aimed at contributing to the sustainable
development of fisheries and improvement of the ecological system
in the Yangtze, he said yesterday at the fry-releasing ceremony in
Wuhan. The city is the capital of central China’s Hubei
Province, through which one-sixth of the 6,300-kilometer river
winds.
Hubei and nine other provinces and municipalities along the
river released sturgeons and four species of carp farmed in China
into the river yesterday.
In Wuhan alone, 10,000 artificially bred Chinese sturgeons,
including 300 more than 1 meter long, were put into the river
together with 10,000 carp fry.
The fry release, which coincided with World Earth Day, is the
largest in recent years, said Li Jianhua, vice-director of the
ministry’s Fisheries Bureau.
The 140-million-years-old Chinese sturgeon is the oldest species
of fish in the Yangtze and one of the oldest vertebrates in the
world. They are dubbed “living fossils” of the Yangtze River and
are under top protection in China, just like giant pandas.
Geng Xianchuan, a 53-year-old Wuhan resident, said that 30 years
ago local residents could see Chinese sturgeons from the deck of a
ship.
Over-harvesting, dams and pollution have combined in recent
years to slash the annual aquatic catch in the river to 100,000
tons, less than one-fourth of what Yangtze River Valley fishermen
caught in 1954, when the take reached 427,000 tons, said bureau
sources.
Historically, the Yangtze River accounts for 60 percent of
China’s total annual freshwater catch. Its four species of
carp--black, grass, silver and big-head--make up half of the
Yangtze’s annual fish output, said Li.
To help reverse the dwindling fish populations, China has
imposed a moratorium on fishing along the Yangtze for the second
year, idling fishing boats on the middle and lower reaches for
three months starting April 1, and banning fishing on the upper
reaches of the river from February 1 to April 30.
Yang Limin, director of the Yangtze Program of the World
Wildlife Fund for China, said the fry release will help publicize
resource conservation and environmental protection, in addition to
supplementing wild populations.
(China Daily April 23, 2004)