(file photo)

Some 60,000 fries about 0.3 meters long are also to be released on Sunday, according to Wei.

The Chinese sturgeon, known as a living fossil because it is one of the oldest vertebrates in the world, has existed for more than 200 million years.

Rapid economic development, over-exploitation of the river and shocking levels of pollution have taken a terrible tool on the fish. The number of Chinese sturgeon that migrate to the Yangtze River each year to spawn has dropped from 2,176 in the early stages of the project to just 500 now.

A recently-released report on Yangtze River protection and development says that more than 600 kilometers of the river are in critical condition, and pollution, damming and too many boats have caused a dramatic decline in Yangtze aquatic life.

(Xinhua News Agency April 18, 2007)