Fifty thousand sturgeon fish were released into the Heilongjiang River in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Thursday morning.

The sturgeon belongs to a species indigenous to the province and enjoy state-level protection.

In the first half of the year, local fishery departments seized over 500,000 sturgeon roe in restaurants, market places and airports. The roe were transferred to provincial wild animal rescue center for artificial incubation.

Some of the roe have developed into fry about 10 centimeters long.

They were released into their original habitat, a river course about 1,000 kilometers from Harbin, capital of the province.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2003)