Here is one of my ideas: take some of the frozen cells which are preserved in China and inject the DNA from the nucleus into the denucleated egg of a relative like a sturgeon or the American Paddlefish and raise those at least in fish farms for meat and caviar if not to be released into the Yangtze.  A similar procedure was done in China using goldfish DNA placed in an enucleated egg of a common carp.  The resulting fish looked exactly like goldfish with the number of vertebrae found in the carp.  When I try to email those Chinese scientists who performed this procedure, I never get a reply.
jc - January 28, 2009

possibly the largest freshwater fish, there are sketchy reports of a fish over 23 feet in length captured in past

The last Chinese paddlefish captured was in January 25, 2003 and it was released with a radio transmitter into the Yangtze River. 

The Chinese paddlefish and the American paddlefish have cartilege skeletons as do sharks, rays and sturgeons.  Their caviar is quite valuable.  The Chinese paddlefish has fabulous aquaculture potential as does its American cousin, Polyodon spathula.  

The government scientist in charge of saving the Chinese paddlefish from extinction is Qiwei Wei, Prof. ph.D Director, Key Laboratory of Freshwater Fish Germplasm Resources and Biotechnology Ministry of Agriculture of China. He was kind enough to send me The story of the attempt to save the Chinese Paddlefish  today.  He really cares and is not about to give up. 

If mature eggs from a single female could be collected (they make over a million eggs at a time), either frozen sperm (which is available) or irradiated sturgeon sperm can fertilize the eggs.  That could substantially help the species to survive. The first priority is to capture a female.

The story of the attempt to save the Chinese Paddlefish

This is a slide show of the most recent (2003) capture of a paddlefish.  It takes a minute to download. None seen since.

July 26, 2007

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The lower pictures are also courtesy of Dr. Steven D. Mims

   

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photo courtesy of Chinese govt. biologist, Dr. Wei

the new Chinese capture boat, 2006

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  Other species which need help

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the world's smallest sturgeon 

 

the Yangtze sturgeon interesting video

the world's largest salamander    Wa Wa Yu (baby fish)

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