Zhang Hecheng, deputy director of the bureau, said the precise cause of death would not be known until an autopsy had been carried out.

He presumed the fish probably died of serious internal injuries, judging from the wounds on its body when it was captured.

The dead paddlefish would become a scientific research specimen after the autopsy, Zhang revealed.

Sun Yonglai, a fisherman in Nanjing, a city on the lower Yangtze River, captured the 117-kilogram fish by chance last month. According to his description, the female fish "was gray in color and about 3.3 meters long".

When Sun discovered the rare fish on the brink of death, he immediately reported it to the local fishery department.

The Chinese paddlefish is highly endangered and is found only in China. It has been dubbed the "panda of the river" and was under top protection of the government, said Guo Wei, a fish expert in the Fishery Bureau.

With conditions continuously worsening in the Yangtze River, Guo said, the Chinese paddlefish had been on the verge of extinction and unseen for decades.

According to the local fishermen, one or two paddlefish were captured by chance in the 1960s, but only weighted two or three kilograms. The 117-kilogram fish would have been at least 30 years old.

Though the fish eventually died, Guo stressed, the whole rescue process reflected the growing environmental awareness of the Chinese people and the discovery indicated a potential number of the species still survived in the Yangtze. "It's a piece of good news for the Chinese fish protectionist," Guo added.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2003)