Heartbroken! The Yangtze sturgeon has been officially declared extinct

Evening of July 21

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) released

Updated report on the global red list of endangered species

Declaring the Chinese Sturgeon Extinct

Yangtze sturgeon extinct in the wild

This news quickly became the number one trending search on Weibo.

According to the latest report from IUCN official website

All 26 sturgeon species in the world are threatened with extinction

IUCN global sturgeon reassessment results show

About two-thirds of sturgeon populations are critically endangered.

Image source: WWF World Wildlife Fund

The tragic news came so suddenly that many people never even saw the white sturgeon. The first time they heard about it was already a farewell.

They lived at the same time as dinosaurs

The sturgeon group is a unique unit on the evolutionary tree. The geological age of the fossils of the giant panda's ancestor, the proto-panda, is only 8 million years old, while the sturgeon fossils can be traced back to the Triassic period of the Mesozoic Era, which means that they lived at the same time as dinosaurs and are truly "living fossils in the water."

The white sturgeon Psephurus gladius is a large carnivorous fish that lives in the Yangtze River. It belongs to the genus Acipenser in the family Acipenser in the order Acipenseriformes. It is one of the only two surviving fish in this family and is also endemic to my country.

Most of the existing Acipenser fish are large in size. The white sturgeon, once the "world's largest freshwater fish", can reach up to 7.5 meters in length, and the Chinese sturgeon can reach up to 4 meters in length. Most sturgeons are "adromous spawning and migratory" and are distributed in the large rivers and shallow coastal areas of the Northern Hemisphere. As an important link for the exchange of information and materials between the ocean and the river, they have become an indicator species of ecological conditions and a reliable indicator of aquatic biodiversity in the Northern Hemisphere.

White sturgeon specimen collected by the Museum of the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Image source: Xinhuanet Photo by Zhang Xianfeng

Yangtze sturgeon: the king of Chinese freshwater fish

The last sighting was in 2003

There is a saying among fishermen in Sichuan: "A thousand pounds of Lazi, ten thousand pounds of Xiang, and Huangpai are too big to be expected." "Lazi" is the Chinese sturgeon, "Huangpai" is the Chinese redfin mullet, which is also an endangered fish today, and "Xiang" refers to the Yangtze sturgeon.

It is said that it can grow to tens of thousands of kilograms. The white sturgeon is huge in size, with an adult fish reaching seven or eight meters in length. It swims very fast and is known as the "tiger in the water" and the "king of Chinese freshwater fish". It is also one of the ten largest freshwater fish in the world.

In ancient times, the large white sturgeon was once distributed in major rivers in China, and was also distributed in North China and the coastal areas. The "tuna" in the poem "There are tuna [wěi] and tuna [xún]" in the Book of Songs refers to the white sturgeon.

In recent centuries, with the continuous intensification of human activities, the natural population of sturgeon has declined sharply and is on the verge of extinction. It is called "the most threatened group in the world."

Globally, the main threats to sturgeons include: illegal fishing for the wild caviar and fish meat trade, dams blocking migration routes, unsustainable sand and gravel mining that destroys spawning grounds, and habitat loss.

Ten years ago, in 2009, the IUCN assessed the endangered status of the Yangtze sturgeon species as “critically endangered”.

But for 16 years, the Yangtze sturgeon has never appeared in the bitter search of fishermen and scientists. According to a previous report by The Paper, on the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2003, scientists from the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences rescued a Yangtze sturgeon for the last time, released it into the wild, and tracked it. But then the boat hit a reef, and the radio signal of the released sturgeon disappeared.

No one could have imagined that this might be the last time people would find the Yangtze sturgeon. Losing this fish means losing the entire species.

What about the Chinese sturgeon?

The Chinese sturgeon, the flagship species of the Yangtze River, has been experiencing a continuous decline in population in recent years. It was listed as a national first-class wild protected animal in 1988 and as a critically endangered species by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 2010.

Artificial breeding and release have always been one of the important measures for the protection of the Chinese sturgeon species. As of last year, several institutions, including the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute, have released more than 7 million Chinese sturgeons in more than 30 years.

However, researchers said that the recovery of rare and endemic species is very difficult, and they are still racing against time to try to alleviate the adverse effects of the decline of wild resources on the reproduction of Chinese sturgeon populations.

The ancients said: If you don't use too many nets in a muddy pond, you will have too many fish to eat. However, due to overfishing, the Yangtze River has fallen into a "fishless" situation. Fish should be released, and people should reflect on themselves. If you fish out the pond, there will be no fish. If you respect the rules, there will be no worries. The rise and fall of fish is essentially a warning sign from nature for development.

Protecting Yangtze River species

We have been working hard

Comprehensive sources: Science and Technology Daily, Xinhuanet, China News Network, etc.