YICHANG, Hubei Province, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Some Chinese fisheries scientists remained cautious on the fate of the Chinese sturgeon while a group of experts gave applause Saturday towards the achievement in artificially propagating the rare species.

    The 50-member group of experts, consisting of academicians of the Chinese academies of science and engineering, fisheries research fellows and professors, passed the scientific assessment of the artificial propagation of the rare Chinese sturgeon, which was announced early this month.

    "The initial success of the artificial propagation of Chinese sturgeons explores a new way to the protection of the rare fish and makes it possible to release artificially bred sturgeon fries into the Yangtze River in large scale," said the assessment report filed by the panel convened by Hubei Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

    The Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute (CSRI) of the China Three Gorges Corporation and the Institute of Hydro-ecology of the Ministry of Water Resources announced in early October that they have made successful artificial insemination and spawning of cultured Chinese sturgeons with the first generation of the bred fish.

    After listening to two reports of the researchers who carried out the artificial breeding experiments, the assessment committee concluded that the two institutes had succeeded in breeding the second filial generation of Chinese sturgeons by adjusting the water temperature, nutrition, illumination, water flow pattern and water quality according to different growth stages of the rare fish.

    The conclusion, however, still needs further verification by national scientific agencies.

    Technological criteria and explicit documents on the parent sturgeons were not expounded in details during the assessment process.

    "If such achievements are real, the technology will be a major breakthrough in China's fisheries industry," said Zhang Youmin, a research fellow with the Hubei Provincial Fisheries Research Institute who participated in the panel.

    "My attitude remain cautious," Zhang said, " because the wild Chinese sturgeons are still facing the pressure of running extinct under a fast changing habitat due to overfishing amid quick economic expansion."

    He said the wild population of Chinese sturgeons is still on the decrease and the artificial propagation of the rare species is yet to be confirmed by experiments that can be repeated.

    Prof. Wei Qiwei, Director of Key Laboratory of Freshwater Bio-diversity Conservation and Utilization under the Ministry of Agriculture, said the process of artificially propagating Chinese sturgeons is very difficult as the rare species' maturing period could last as long as 16 years.

    "To believe that is true, I need more information like their age identification and detailed files in the past decade," Wei said.

    "On conserving the species, I'm a little pessimistic given the example of Baiji (White-flag Dolphin or Lipotes vexillifer)," he added.

    The white-flag dolphin, known as "Baiji" in Chinese and a unique species to China's Yangtze River, is listed as one of the 12 most endangered species in the world.

    A team of 25 scientists from China, the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany and Switzerland failed to find any white-flag dolphin during a 38-day search in 2006.

    Though having a much larger population compared with Baiji, Chinese sturgeons are also listed as one of the most endangered species as lingering Yangtze River pollution and the disruptions from ship's navigation usually hold off conservation efforts.

    Born in the Yangtze River and growing in the sea, Chinese sturgeons turn sexually mature at the age of 15 and migrate back to the upstream Jinsha River for spawning.

    As the Gezhouba Dam was built across the main stream of the Yangtze River in 1981, Chinese sturgeons' migration route was cutoff. But researchers said that sturgeons had found new spawning grounds downstream the dam as a result of adaption for more than 20 years.

    An incomplete survey made by the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute in 2006 showed that the number of sturgeons migrating back to the Yangtze River for spawning dwindled from about 2, 176 a year in the early construction of the Gezhouba Dam to 500. No new statistics were available since then.

    Thought to have lived at the same time as dinosaurs, Chinese sturgeons can range between 2 to 5 meters in body length and weigh up to 500 kilograms.