The Chinese Sturgeon Museum is situated in the city of Yichang. Built in 1982,the Museum is part of the Chinese Sturgeon Institution of China which is using artificial breeding techniques to try to preserve this endangered species. The Chinese Sturgeon is an animal strictly protected by the Chinese government. It has a history of 140 million years, and is thought to have lived at the same time as dinosaurs. That is why it is called a "living fossil". The Chinese sturgeon is mainly distributed in the trunk tributaries of the Yangtze River and some coastal rivers. Between the summer and autumn every year, it used to swim to the upper reaches of the Yangtze to spawn then carried its fry back to the lower reaches. It is large in size and imposing and dignified in bearing. The sturgeon can grow up to 4 meters (13ft) in length, weighs up to more than 1000 pound, ranking the biggest of all species of sturgeon in the world and the biggest animal in the Yangtze River.