Sturgeon Shadows on the Great River

(In the Yangtze lives the sturgeon, its elephant-like snout supreme; for millions upon millions of years, it has roamed the mountains and seas.) Following a reassessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Yangtze sturgeon has been upgraded from Endangered to Critically Endangered. This is the harshest warning yet about the natural environment of the Yangtze River basin. Jiang Xiangyu, an aquatic researcher at the Academy of Sciences, is devoted to the Yangtze sturgeon and yearns to protect it. She volunteers to travel to the remote and challenging Sanjiangkou to conduct field research on aquatic life and the natural environment of water resources. Beneath these mountains and rivers, scientists and fishers work together to resolve the conflict between natural resources and the necessities of survival, finding the best way to improve livelihoods while protecting ecological resources. The future of the mountains and rivers, the future of the environment, and the future of aquatic life are, after all, also the future of humanity...