Moreover, the local human resources and civil affairs departments have helped former fishermen by offering job training courses and subsidies.

To date, more than 10,000 citywide fishermen have retired from their jobs on the river, with 7,000 finding work in other industries. All are receiving financial support from social security funds, the report said.

The city has also been working on fish source protection. In June last year, the first veterinary ship for sick fish in the Yangtze basin began sailing in the Chongqing section.

The breeding of rare fish conducted by technicians in the city's fishery research institutes has contributed to preventing species from becoming extinct.

For example, as early as 1976, the Wanzhou Fisheries Research Institute in Chongqing took the lead in the captive breeding of Chinese suckers (Myxocyprinus asiaticus), which has also been under second-class State protection since 1989, according to the director of the institute Liu Benxiang.

About 70 million rare fish that they've bred, including the Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese suckers, have been released into the Three Gorges Reservoir area in the past decade.