China's threatened sturgeon swim on

Critically endangered, nationally protected fish being boosted by ongoing repopulation program

Some 500 Chinese sturgeon were released on April 8 into the Yangtze River in Hubei province in central China, as part of the ongoing repopulation program to boost the critically endangered species' flagging numbers in the wild.

The sturgeon - belonging to a strictly protected species in China whose origins stretch back to the dinosaur era - were released by the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute in the river along the city of Yichang, also the site of the world's biggest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam.