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More than 65,000 Chinese sturgeon fry, were set free into the Yangtze River Thursday at the Yichang port, central China's Hubei Province.

The captivity-reared Chinese sturgeon were released with the help of the Chinese Sturgeon Research Center and the China Three Gorges Project Corporation.

The newly released fish are now on their way downstream before they swim into the east China Sea and the Yellow Sea.

"The release will help increase the population of fish resources in the Yangtze, China's longest river, which is of great importance for the ecological system of the river," said Xiao Hui,chief engineer of the research center.

The activity marks the 20th anniversary of China's efforts to protect the endangered fish, whose exact number remains unknown.

A species 140 million years old, Chinese sturgeon is the oldest fish in the Yangtze and one of the oldest vertebrates in the world. It is also referred to as the "panda under the water."

The rare and endangered Chinese sturgeon is a top-level protected species in China.

Experts have also been exploring techniques to breed Chinese sturgeon artificially and releasing them back into the river. Since 1984, about six million artificially-bred fry have been freed into the Yangtze River.

From autumn to summer every year, shoals of sturgeon head for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, usually to the section in southwest China's Sichuan Province, to spawn.

Yet experts say that fewer and fewer Chinese sturgeon swim back to the source of the river to spawn because of over-fishing and pollution.

(Xinhua News Agency December 29, 2005)