Ikan Sungai Termahal USD2540/kg

The Yangtze Saury, a once commonly seen fish and one of the three famous breeds of the Yangtze River, has deceased dramatically in number and is now being sold at a top price of 16,000 yuan/ kilo (2540 USD/kilo), reports City Evening News.

Yangtze Sauries have become a luxury product due to their rarity, which have led to sky high prices and speculation among vendors.

The City Evening News report mentions that a Jiangsu fish vendor bought two fish from a fish market at a price of 4000 yuan (635 USD) along with another six smaller fish from elsewhere. 

The vendor then sold all the fish to a restaurant. The restaurant cooked and sold these fish at a combined price of over 10,000 yuan (1587 USD), according to the report. Consumers are also able to purchase the fish in Beijing restaurants, with dishes ranging from 880 yuan (140 USD) to 4000 yuan (635 USD).

Due to over fishing and pollution, the amount of Yangtze Saury harvested in Jiangyin city by the river has dropped dramatically, from 174 tons in 1956, 106 tons in 1987, to less than half a ton in 2011, the city's local record showed.

The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences put the amount harvested along the Yangtze River at 3750 tons in 1973, 370 tons in 1983 and less than 100 tons since 2002.

On top of the fact that the fish is now limited in number, middlemen within the sales process have also forced prices upwards. Some vendors have even resorted to cheating customers by selling Sauries from Chongming Island as Yangtze Sauries.

The government should impose an outright ban on the fishing of the Yangtze Saury, as artificial breeding programs, designed to boost the Saury's numbers, have not been properly established, said Shi Weigang, official with the Freshwater Fisheries Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences.

Shi added that, "the Yangtze River is in effect a kind of resource library. Protection of the Yangtze River and the species that live in it is akin to protecting our future generation."

The waters of the Yangtze river near Chongqing municipality in central China became bright red on Thursday, Chinese state media reported.

Although the exact cause is still under investigation, authorities believe the color change is due to red silt flowing from the section upstream of the city.

State broadcaster CCTV said that the environmental protection bureau in Chongqing had ruled out the possibilities of industrial and sewage pollution causing the river to turn red.

However, the Jianhe River in Luoyang, Henan province, was the source of shock when itran blood red in December last year. In that case, the Environmental Protection Bureau identified the source of the problem as two illegal factories that had been dumping pollutants into the water.

The Yangtze river (Chang Jiang) is the longest river in Asia and third largest in the world.

 

 

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