Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 28 (Reporters Gu Yiping and Hu Lu) The reporter learned from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on the 28th that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs simultaneously launched the 2025 Chinese sturgeon reproduction and release activities in Anqing, Anhui, Jingzhou, Hubei and other places on the same day, and 600,000 Chinese sturgeons were released this time.

The Chinese sturgeon is a national first-level key protected aquatic wildlife, a flagship species of aquatic organisms in the Yangtze River and an important indicator of the ecological health status of the Yangtze River. Affected by multiple factors, the Chinese sturgeon has not reproduced naturally for many years since 2017, and wild populations are difficult to maintain themselves. Carrying out large-scale reproduction and release of Chinese sturgeons is an important protection measure to supplement the number of Chinese sturgeon populations and promote the wild reproduction of Chinese sturgeons.

It is understood that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will increase the efforts to preserve artificial seeds and proliferate and release Chinese sturgeon from 2024. That year, the scale of proliferation and release exceeded 1 million, and now about 110,000 young fish have entered the ocean through the estuary of the Yangtze River, and their growth is in good condition.

In the next step, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will continue to carry out large-scale reproduction and release of Chinese sturgeons. The 2025 annual plan is to release 1 million Chinese sturgeons to further supplement the number of wild populations and provide a solid foundation for restoring the wild breeding of Chinese sturgeons.