Shanghai passes new law calling for cooperation to protect Chinese sturgeon

Shanghai legislators passed a new law protecting Chinese sturgeon on Thursday, emphasizing regional cooperation and ordering an annual report of the status of the endangered ancient species indigenous to China.

The Shanghai Municipal Regulation on the Protection and Management of Chinese Sturgeon was the first local legislation in the country to protect one endangered fish, said Ding Wei, director of the legislative affairs committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

Ranked as a critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Chinese sturgeon, a "living fossil" that dates back to prehistoric times, lives mainly in the Yangtze River.

The fish dwells along the river mouth and migrates more than 1,000 kilometers upstream for propagation upon reaching sexual maturity, said Liu Jian, director of the Shanghai Aquatic Wildlife Conservation and Research Center.

Shanghai first set up the natural reserve for the sturgeon in the mouth of the Yangtze in 2002, but the population of the fish had been decreasing.

"The protection of the fish requires efforts from all provinces along the Yangtze River," Liu said. "We have been working on the artificial breeding of the fish in Shanghai, but with no success yet."

In only two of the past seven years of monitoring has the center seen baby sturgeon swimming downstream to Shanghai.

"This sends an alarming signal that the fish is on the verge of extinction," Liu said. "I don't want to see the tragedy that occurred with Chinese paddlefish, which was declared extinct last year, happen again with Chinese sturgeon."

The new law urges regional cooperation for the protection of the sturgeon, including joint law enforcement against illegal fishing, joint monitoring of the habitat environment and the sharing of conservation technology and resources with other provinces.

The regulation also made it clear that the municipal agriculture and rural affairs commission is the administrative leader of the conservation work.

Wang Guozhong, senior inspector of the commission, said it will build a cross-regional mechanism to arrange protection and artificial propagation to supplement the diminishing population of the sturgeon, and it will release annual reports to the public.

In 2018, the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a guideline to enhance the protection of aquatic life in the Yangtze River region.

It stated that human activities, including building dams, water pollution, overfishing and waterway dredging have had a severe impact on aquatic life in the Yangtze River.