Scientists in An Giang Province have successfully reproduced a rare fish species, which is listed in red book.
On April 8, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Trinh, Director of An Giang provincial Centre for Fishery and Breeding Development, announced that they were successful in their first attempt to breed 5,000 small barb fish. It is the second facility to successfully reproduce barb fish.
The Research Institute of Aquaculture, in Tien Giang also had some success with barb fish breeding, but the numbers were much smaller.
The research centre in An Giang currently has around 100 of this type of fish, which could potentially produce 100,000 more by the end of this year.
So far, effective techniques for breeding barb fish, named after their spiky fins, have been lacking, mostly due to the species' long gestation period.
On the other hand, this type of fish has a high economic value. Because it is included in the Redbook, scientists have been looking into ways to minimise the rearing time.
Research into this area is important, not only for economic reasons, but for the protection of biodiversity.