The Yangtze River White Sturgeon, the "King of Chinese Freshwater Fish", has not stepped into 2020.

The Yangtze River White Sturgeon failed to enter 2020. Another species endemic to the Yangtze River in China has been declared extinct.

The news was revealed in a research paper (pre-proof) published online by the international academic journal holistic Environmental Science (Science of The Total Environment).

The correspondent author of this paper is Dr. Wei Qiwei, chief scientist and researcher of Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, and the first author of this paper is Dr. Zhang Hui.

The Yangtze River white Sturgeon is expected to be extinct between 2005 and 2010, the researchers said in the paper.

The pre-proofing (pre-proof) of this paper will be published online on December 23,2019.

In fact, experts from the international organization IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) reported at an academic conference in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province on Sept. 17 that the expert group had assessed the extinction of the Yangtze River White Sturgeon (extinct), a species endemic to China and a national priority protected animal.

This is another bad news after the Baiqi dolphin (critically endangered, CR, may be extinct) and the Yangtze River shad were declared functionally extinct by researchers.

The results are being reported to the IUCN office and will be formally updated and published in the IUCN Red list (the IUCN Red list of Endangered species), the expert said.

In addition to the extinction of the Yangtze River White Sturgeon, Chinese Sturgeon and Yangtze River Sturgeon endemic to China are still assessed as "extremely endangered" (status).

The aforementioned experts reported the results of the above assessment at an international conference on Sturgeon held in Chun'an County, Hangzhou.

"A thousand jin of wax, ten thousand jin of elephants." "Elephant" refers to the White Sturgeon on the Yangtze River, which is said to grow to tens of thousands of jin. The white Sturgeon is huge, with adults up to seven or eight meters long and swimming fast. It is known as the "tiger in the water" and "the king of Chinese freshwater fish". It is also one of the ten largest freshwater fish in the world.

Ten years ago, in 2009, the IUCN assessed the endangered species of the Yangtze River white Sturgeon as "extremely endangered".

But for 16 years, the Yangtze River White Sturgeon has never appeared in the hard search of fishermen and scientists. Scientists from the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fisheries rescued a Yangtze River white Sturgeon for the last time on the first day of the Lunar New year in 2003, thepaper.cn reported earlier. But then, the ship hit the rocks and the radio signal of the white Sturgeon released disappeared.

No one could have thought that this might be the last time people found the Yangtze River White Sturgeon. If you lose this fish, you lose the whole species.

The IUCN expert said there is no evidence, including imaging, that the white Sturgeon still exists. If any individual of the Yangtze River white Sturgeon is photographed or captured, IUCN will reconsider adjusting its endangered species.

According to a previous report by thepaper.cn, at the Yangtze River Biological Resources Conservation Forum Aquatic Wildlife Protection Sub-Forum held in Wuhan, Hubei Province, on November 4, 2018, Wei Qiwei, a researcher and chief scientist of the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Sciences, revealed in his report that the white Sturgeon may have become extinct and experts are evaluating the situation. Since 2003, researchers have not found any more white Sturgeon, and there are no artificial breeding individuals left. But there is still a glimmer of hope. "some fishermen believe that there are still white sturgeons in some waters of the Yangtze River."