Hey, amigos! 🌊🐟 This past Thursday, November 27, 2025, China Three Gorges Corporation (CTGC) revealed a jaw-dropping milestone: they’ve bred the first-ever third-generation (F3) Chinese sturgeon entirely through artificial propagation!✨
This month, at CTGC's Yangtze River Rare Fish Conservation Center, researchers welcomed about 112,000 tiny sturgeon fry! These little guys are the offspring of a 13-year-old female and a 14-year-old male—both second-generation sturgeon grown by the Yangtze River Biodiversity Research Center.
To make this magic happen, scientists started a rigorous selection process earlier this year. They boosted the sturgeons’ diets, simulated natural river environments, and timed artificial induction perfectly on November 6 and 7. The result? A fertilization rate above 95% and fry hatching after just five days of incubation! 🙌
The successful birth of the third generation shows our second-generation sturgeon can fully mature and reproduce under artificial conditions.– Jiang Wei, deputy director of the research center
Looking ahead, CTGC plans to set up an artificial-plus-natural protection system, combining lab efforts with wild restoration support. This hybrid approach aims to supercharge the comeback of wild Chinese sturgeon populations.
Known as a living fossil, the Chinese sturgeon is endemic to China and ranks among the planet’s most primitive fish. The first generation of captive-bred sturgeon arrived in the 1980s, followed by a second-generation success in 2009. Now, thanks to F3, conservation just leveled up! 🎮🐠
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
