'Fish dads' help repopulate Yangtze River

Technicians try to prevent species from going extinct through artificial breeding

A group of male technicians, nicknamed "fish dads", from Chongqing's Wanzhou Fisheries Research Institute have made indispensable contributions to replenishing the biodiversity of the Yangtze River by breeding rare fish－about 70 million rare fish including Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese suckers that they've bred and released into the Three Gorges Reservoir area in the past decade.

In the breeding workshop for rare fish at the Shuanghekou base in Chongqing's Wanzhou district, one of the four breeding bases at the institute, 10 technicians are carefully inspecting the parent fish. Their main job is to help induce ovulation and then complete artificial insemination of various rare fish including Chinese suckers, Yangtze sturgeon, Yanyuan carp, Onychostoma angustistomata and Percocypris pingi.

Shuanghekou, located on a tributary 3 kilometers from the Yangtze, has abundant good water sources and flat terrain, which are ideal for breeding the rare fish. Local species from the Yangtze have high requirements for the environment, according to the institute.