Wild Chinese sturgeon on brink of extinction

The wild Chinese sturgeon, which is thought to have existed for more than 140 million years, is at risk of extinction after none of the rare fish were detected reproducing naturally in the Yangtze river last year. One of the world’s oldest living species, the species has seen its numbers crash as China’s economic boom brings with it pollution, dams and boat traffic along the world’s third-longest river. For the first time since researchers began keeping records 32 years ago, authorities found that there was no natural reproduction of wild Chinese sturgeon in 2013.

No natural reproduction means that the sturgeons would not expand its population and without protection, they might risk extinction.

Wei Qiwei of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences

The fish is classed as “critically endangered” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s “Red List” of threatened species, just one level ahead of “extinct in the wild”. Only around 100 of the sturgeon remain, compared with several thousand in the 1980s. Animal populations in many of China’s ecosystems have plummeted during the country’s decades of development and urbanisation, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a 2012 study.

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