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The National Geographic Society and China's Yangtze River Fisheries Institute have launched a new search for the Chinese paddlefish, a critically endangered species experts fear may be extinct, a scientist said on August 1st.

 

Yang Deguo, deputy director of the Chinese institute, said an initial study launched in May had turned up no signs of the fish in the Yangtze's upper reaches.

 

"We have been trying to catch one for three months with no success," Yang, who is participating in the study, said in a telephone interview.

 

Experts hoped the discovery of fish would allow for captive breeding, Yang said.

 

No young Chinese paddlefish have been spotted since 1995, raising fears that dams on the Yangtze River in which it lives may have destroyed the fish's ability to spawn, Zeb Hogan, team leader for the society's Megafish Project, said in a statement.

 

"The fear is that these fish may be close to extinction," Hogan said.

 

As recently as the 1970's, fisherman each year caught hundreds of the fish, which reportedly reached up to seven meters in lengths and weights exceeding 454 kilograms.

 

Experts believe the river's upper reaches hold the best chances of finding live paddlefish because the area holds many deep pools and underwater caves where old fish can hide.

 

For thousands of years, paddlefish, which are related to sturgeon, traveled the river from their spawning grounds in the upper reaches to forage in the middle and lower parts of the river and sometimes even along the coast where the Yangtze empties into the Pacific Ocean.

 

(Shanghai Daily August 2, 2007)