More than 10,000 artificially-bred Chinese sturgeons were released into the Yangtze River Thursday in Jingzhou and Yichang cities in central China's Hubei province.

The release will help increase the population of fish resources in the Yangtze, China's longest river, said Zhang Xianghua, an expert with Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute, adding that the same number of Chinese sturgeons will be freed next week in Wuhan city, capital of Hubei Province.

The fries, approximately 30 centimeters long, were provided by the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute and the Administrative Committee of the Yangtze River Fishery.

Experts have registered 167 kinds of fish living in the Yangtze River, including several endangered ones such as Chinese sturgeons and Chinese flag dolphins, according to Hubei Provincial Aquatics Bureau.

A species 140 million years old, the Chinese sturgeon is the oldest kind of fish in the Yangtze and one of the oldest vertebrates in the world.

Between summer and autumn, Chinese sturgeons flock and swim back to the upper reaches of the Yangtze from the entry where the river joins the sea. They have a nature to grow up in salt water and reproduce in fresh water.

(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2004)